Union Home Minister Amit Shah himself sounded more open to such a possibility in a recent interview.
Disgruntled Janata Dal-United leader Upendra Kushwaha on Monday resigned from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party, less than two years after returning to the party, and announced formation of the 'Rashtriya Loktantrik Janata Dal'.
A senior JD-U leader said Lallan Singh has expressed his desire to give up the top party post.
Though there was no official word from both the parties, the sources claimed that two Uttar Pradesh-based political outfits will contest 37 Lok Sabha seats each.
Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav on Tuesday said he was in favour of extending reservation benefits to Muslims but emphasised that it should be based on social backwardness and 'not on the basis of religion'.
While the Samajwadi Party largely banks on its Muslim-Yadav support base, the Bharatiya Janata Party is trying to counter it with the Modi-Yogi combo in the state assembly polls.
'I have to take a stand to strengthen it. I cannot sit silent.'
Bihar assembly Speaker Awadh Bihari Chaudhary on Sunday called on Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav, at a time when the state was witnessing a big political churn.
Opposition alliance INDIA on Thursday boycotted a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Rajya Sabha to protest Prime Minister Narendra Modi not making a statement on Manipur violence in Parliament, a senior leader said.
At the core of Nitish Kumar's decision was a cold political calculation. He assessed that the RJD's support base was unlikely to vote for JD-U candidates in the Lok Sabha polls. He was unsure of winning even half a dozen if he stayed with the RJD and the Congress.
The seat sharing formula reached between the BSP and SP is not on the basis of who emerged stronger in the previous election.
Leaders of several Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties met on Saturday to take stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and claimed they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
As the Opposition held its first meeting on the Presidential polls and names of Farooq Abdullah and Gopalkrishna Gandhi also cropped up, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reached out to several parties across the political spectrum to build a consensus choice with senior party leader and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh speaking to Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge (Congress), Mamata Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) and Naveen Patnaik (Biju Janata Dal).
As Election 2024 hurtles towards result day in a medley of mangalsutra, mujra, mutton, machli and other barbs, these may sound like character names from Hindi comics of yore. Instead, these are the mocking, sometimes vicious monikers given by political rivals to each other.
SP leader Akhilesh Yadav has successfully poached a number of OBC leaders from the ruling party, including Swami Prasad Maurya, in his efforts to broaden his party's social base beyond the traditional Muslim and Yadav votebank to take it on this time round.
Bahujan Samaj Party Member of Parliament Kadir Rana, two party legislators and former Uttar Pradesh minister Saeed-uz-Zama of the Congress are among 10 persons chargesheeted by the Special Investigation Team probing the Muzaffarnagar riots for provoking communal tension with inflammatory speeches during a Muslim community panchayat.
The Bihar CM and Rahul, through their emissaries, have been in touch to shape an alliance with the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP faction as its head.
ED officials said that Subhash was produced before a special PMLA court on Sunday morning and was sent to judicial custody.
RJD president Lalu Prasad's daughter Rohini Acharya has entered the fray to wrest back her father's erstwhile pocket borough.
The RLD has aligned with the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in UP and is attacking the state government on farm distress and the outstanding sugarcane dues.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav lashed out at his one-time ally, the Congress, and said that in the state the BJP is nowhere.
Party's chief spokesperson K C Tyagi said Kumar has agreed to take over the mantle from Lalan Singh.
If the BJP gets only 200 seats and wants to remain in power, Modi will have to make way -- either for a proxy of his choice, or for an internal rival, predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'What social justice is Tejashwi talking about?' 'Muslims in Bihar are asking we are 18%, and you are giving us 2 seats.'
Fielding a strong joint opposition candidate from Varanasi in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was among the proposals discussed at the fourth meeting of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), sources said.
The BJP is far more prepared than the Congress as their pool of prospective candidates is much bigger, reports Prakash Bhandari.
Sibal, whose exit from the Congress is another jolt for the electorally battered party, went to the Uttar Pradesh assembly premises to file his papers with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, Ram Gopal Yadav and other senior leaders.
Voting is being held in the politically sensitive Kairana in Uttar Pradesh, Palghar and Bhandara-Gondiya and Nagaland Lok Sabha seats.
Olympic medallist Bajrang Punia said few were trying to steer the movement in a different direction, but refused to name them.
Gandhi came along with Mukherjee and while the former president left after sometime, the Congress chief offered to drop him back but Mukherjee politely refused.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday vowed to thwart alleged attempts to rob Dalits and backward classes of reservations by the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) which he accused of 'enslavement' and performing 'mujra' for Muslim vote bank.
Mayawati appeared to be opting for a wait-and watch-policy till the Lok Sabha election results are announced on May 23.
"You can see all of us working together. There is no discontent. The problem is, today newspapers have more pages than before, news channels run 24X7 and then there is social media where anybody can say anything without worrying about backing a claim with facts," he said.
The former Congress president alleged that PM Modi had a "monopoly over corruption".
The BJP stormed back to power in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, trouncing its main rival SP, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asserting that people have buried the politics of caste and religion.
Three of the fence-sitters rule fairly large states Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha that together send 63 members to Lok Sabha -- where the Congress or other opposition parties have been pushed to the margins.
'Merchandise plays a key role in creating buzz about a specific party.'
Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday said that the country is witnessing 'politics of change' and called on the youth to make it successful.
'The Congress is trying to reinvent itself -- the caste census demand, OBC emphasis, the anti-corporate thrust, especially on Adani etc -- all this is not standard Congress strategy.'
Seen by political watchers as the favourite to retain power for a third straight term, the Bharatiya Janata Party has set itself an ambitious target of winning 370 Lok Sabha seats, a goal aimed as much at projecting its strength as at diminishing the opposition in popular imagination.
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