'Dynastic politics has become a tool of convenience for political parties. The BJP does not hesitate to accept it when it comes to its own alliance or party candidates. The same goes for the others.'
Else, warns rebel party MLA, the RJD will split.
'Nitish Kumar has no vision for the people of the state. He also had no justifiable reason for ditching us and going back to the BJP-led NDA'
The party also nominated six others, including former Union minister Beni Prasad Verma, an influential Kushwaha leader who recently quit Congress and returned to the Samajwadi Party, and realtor Sanjay Seth for the biennial polls scheduled next month.
Madhaw Anand, the party's principal national general secretary and chief spokesperson, resigned from the posts as well as the primary membership stating that the party ran the risk of being "finished" on account of the "inconsequential" move.
The ceremony on Friday will be attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and chief ministers of Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states.
Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) supporters stayed put on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway on Friday as the crowd swelled there, notwithstanding the Ghaziabad administration's ultimatum to vacate the UP Gate protest site where security force in large numbers was re-deployed.
A senior JD-U leader said Lallan Singh has expressed his desire to give up the top party post.
It is possible to be blind to this and pretend to carry on as if nothing has happened but that will not change the reality, asserts Aakar Patel.
Both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have refused to meet Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha.
A meeting of opposition leaders from many anti-Bharatiya Janata Party parties, most of them regional forces, hosted by the veteran leader and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Tuesday is being seen by political pundits as a beginning of an exercise by them to join forces to put up a more cohesive challenge to the saffron party.
Aspiring to contest Lok Sabha polls from Baghpat in UP, former Mumbai police commissioner Satyapal Singh on Tuesday said the riot taint on some BJP MLAs will not affect his chances and he will fight polls on the development agenda in Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Ajit Singh's stronghold.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah himself sounded more open to such a possibility in a recent interview.
The rising price of pulses has become a hot issue during the Bihar assembly polls.
Within four years of winning a single party majority in the Lok Sabha with 282 seats -- the first time it has happened in 30 years -- the BJP has lost it.
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.
Anna Hazare-led civil society on Sunday came under scathing attack in the Lok Sabha with Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad saying any design to target the Constitution and Parliament should be thwarted.
The Janata Dal-United supremo, however, also appeared annoyed with parliamentary board chief Upendra Kushwaha who had recently jumped the gun with the insinuation that the RJD could be trying to 'further the Bharatiya Janata Party's agenda' by refraining from taking action against the minister.
According to the latest head count by Congress's managers, the United Progressive Alliance has only 271 seats in the Lok Sabha, though the requisite majority in the 545-member House is 273. For the ruling party, the issue is not about saving the government, but about crossing the majority mark to send the decisive signal that the UPA enjoys a clear majority and has the moral right to continue in power, say sources.
Reservation Bill introduced in Lok Sabha
The meeting at Gandhi's 10 Janpath residence was seen as very crucial in forging an Opposition unity with efforts on to reconcile differences between the Congress and some regional parties that have been at loggerheads traditionally.
Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United on Saturday night suspended 3 women MLAs including a former minister, for campaigning and seeking votes for Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal candidates.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra appears to have shed the maximum sweat among top leaders for over the last 45 days in the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh assembly elections campaign.
Nearly 2.6 crore people in 73 constituencies of western Uttar Pradesh are voting on Saturday in the first of the seven phases of high-stake assembly elections
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.
Under fire over communal violence in the party-ruled Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Thursday rejected any parallel with 2002 Godhara riots in Gujarat and promised "justice" for victims and "strict action" against the guilty.
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.
Party's chief spokesperson K C Tyagi said Kumar has agreed to take over the mantle from Lalan Singh.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Kushwaha retorted saying that he could not leave the party without his share in the "paternal property".
'Episodes of targeted attacks on Muslims established that for a section of people and, sadly, even officials of the State, the election results conveyed no lessons.' 'Opposition parties must not be hesitant in speaking out whenever the mob with tacit State support targets Muslims,' asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
Two other ministers Swantradev Singh and Mohsin Raza also took oath.
"We had not contemplated that the alliance will fare so badly. People are not able to digest the poll results. It is against their sentiment and aspirations," Mayawati said on Thursday.
Earlier, Left, SP and RJD members sought to raise the issue when the House met for the day but were disallowed by the Speaker.
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.
"We particularly want Bajrang Bali because he is linked to my own Dalit caste," Mayawati said.
UP and Bihar contributed 105 seats to the BJP's tally in 2014. It has now lost 8 Lok Sabha by-polls in the last four years, including three successive losses in UP and two seats in Rajasthan.
While Yadav began to tour different constituencies and address public meetings to mobilise the SP rank and file, he has concurrently started the tedious process of cobbling up an alliance of smaller outfits representing a mlange of castes and sub-castes, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
'Shatrughan Sinha's name is in the Congress's probable candidates list.'
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