The BJP is far more prepared than the Congress as their pool of prospective candidates is much bigger, reports Prakash Bhandari.
Legislators from Bahujan Samaj Party, Bharatiya Janata Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal, Apna Dal jumped into the Well of the House with placards and banners even before the assembly proceedings started.
The meeting of the 14-member all-important panel of the opposition will take place at the residence of Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar in New Delhi on September 13 evening.
Reaching out to Jats, a politically crucial community in western Uttar Pradesh, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah has presented his party as the best bet for them, saying voting for the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal or any other party would not help their cause.
Modi did not have the guts to face the students of the country and so he crushed them using the police, he alleged. "I challenge the prime minister to go to any of the universities, stand over there without his police, without his infrastructure and tell the people what is he going to do with this country," the Congress leader said.
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.
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.
Plans for a 500-car road show were abandoned after the controversy surrounding his release.
Accompanied by his son Santosh Suman, Manjhi met Shah at his residence in New Delhi.
The Lok Sabha was adjourned briefly during Question Hour on Friday after uproar over "neglect" of Hindi and other regional languages in the Union Public Service Commission examinations, with the Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal members trooping into the Well to register their protest.
RJD president Lalu Prasad's daughter Rohini Acharya has entered the fray to wrest back her father's erstwhile pocket borough.
The rumours have primarily been about the impending resignation of JD-U national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh 'Lalan', for alleged proximity towards ally Rashtriya Janaat Dal at the expense of loyalty to his own party.
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.
The former Congress president alleged that PM Modi had a "monopoly over corruption".
There are a total 623 candidates in the fray, and affidavits of eight of them could not be analysed because they were either badly scanned or incomplete, the ADR said.
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.
The actress-turned-neta wants to "serve" and not contest any elections.
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.
"We small parties, like the Apna Dal-S, want some respect to be shown to us. We, our leaders and workers feel hurt if due importance is not given to us," Ashish Patel told mediapersons
Union minister Giriraj Singh on Saturday claimed that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United and its ally Rashtriya Janata Dal, founded and headed by Lalu Prasad Yadav, were heading for a merger.
He said the BJP is leaving a "culture", which may be used against it in the future.
'What social justice is Tejashwi talking about?' 'Muslims in Bihar are asking we are 18%, and you are giving us 2 seats.'
The Janata Dal-United parliamentary board chief latched on to reports of KS Eshwarappa, a minister in the BJP-ruled southern state, having said that the tricolour may be replaced by a saffron flag sometime in the future.
'Singh was forced to submit his resignation to Nitish Kumar few days ago and convinced to announce his offer to resign at the party meeting.'
'Merchandise plays a key role in creating buzz about a specific party.'
Nitish Kumar's unanimous election to the top post at the party's National Executive meeting brought an end to the decade-old tenure of Sharad Yadav, who had ruled himself out for a fourth term.
'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.'
'The BJP will use Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha to check Nitish Kumar.' 'They will not allow him to function freely as before.'
Bihar assembly elections which are to be announced shortly are expected to be five-phased and around 50,000 paramilitary personnel will be deployed in each phase to ensure peaceful polling.
Angry protesters allegedly forced the two vehicles to stop and set them on fire.
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.
An interim report on the action has also been sent by the field investigation wing of the income tax department to the Central Board of Direct Taxes in Delhi, the administrative body for the department.
The curtain came down on rumbustious electioneering over the last two months when assembly polls were also held in four other states - Goa, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Manipur.
They said they will raise issues related to rising prices, unemployment, corruption and caste census.
"I will take Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) along... my relation with him is unbreakable," he said during an informal chat.
The former Union minister joined the UPA after holding talks with the Congress leadership.
The response was tepid in other parts of the country even as several INDIA bloc parties as well as other non-BJP outfits extended their support to the bandh.
The National Conference is a part of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) and will continue to be, party leader Omar Abdullah clarified on Thursday and said it is in talks with the Congress for an arrangement in three of the six Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BSP chief alleged that Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party considered the Dalits as lowly.
