'Yogi was there, but ultimately the BJP got extremely worried and therefore Modi pitched in.'
'The Congress should have played a more active role to take care of the needs of regional parties. It failed.' 'Taking this into account, Nitishji took the final decision with the full support of the JD-U.'
The Constitution (116th Amendment) Bill was defeated in the Lok Sabha by a determined Opposition, helped by the absence of parties supporting the government from outside like the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal
Earlier this week, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi held a series of meetings, including with Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and Janata Dal-United president Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan.
The marathon meeting, spread over two sessions and kept under wraps, came a day after top leaders of socialist-leaning parties attended SP's silver jubilee meet here -- a move seen as an attempt by Mulayam to forge an alliance ahead of the assembly polls hardly a few months away.
An electoral survey conducted by CNN IBN/IBN7-Axis in Bihar has given a clear edge to the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Janata Dal-United-led 'Mahagathbandhan', riding home the assembly elections with 137 seats (+/-8 seats) and a 46 per cent vote share.
Kushwaha described the meeting as a courtesy call.
'They have no incentive to be part of either the NDA or INDIA at this stage, but they may hedge their bets towards the winning coalition in the post-poll setting.'
Will Malik's worldview, shaped by his years with the socialists, Charan Singh, the Congress and V P Singh, help him govern the troubled state? Or would his rule have the imprint of the party he joined in the latter years of his chequered political career?
The opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) was in the grip of a crisis on Saturday with the Janata Dal-United saying the alliance was collapsing amid indications that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will switch back to the National Democratic Alliance, prompting the Congress to allege that the Bharatiya Janata Party is doing its best to cause a 'mini implosion' in the coalition.
The Janata Dal-United leader maintained that having taken the initiative to bring parties opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party, he desired nothing for himself but admitted having stressed at the meeting the need to expedite seat-sharing arrangements.
The country is all set for the second round of elections on April 18 in the ongoing seven-phase Lok Sabha polls that will elect 543 members to the lower house of Parliament. Going to polls in the second phase will be 95 seats in 12 states and one Union Territory. Here is a look at some of the big names contesting in phase two of Lok Sabha elections.
BSP legislators were earlier supporting the Ashok Gehlot government from outside and were in constant touch with the chief minister.
The Nitish Kumar government has the support of 132 MLAs.
Rashtriya Janata Dal member of Parliament Uma Shanker Singh on Thursday received a head injury as he fell on the steps near the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha and was immediately rushed to hospital by fellow MPs and Parliament staff. Singh received the injury as he was alighting the stairs near the Speaker's podium and fell behind the Lok Sabha reporters' table just below the rostrum
Apart from the 18 members of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), including the Bharatiya Janata Party, seven non-National Democratic Alliance parties will attend the ceremony, going by their stated position on the issue which has snowballed into another political flashpoint between the ruling and opposition camps.
Political watchers say the caste survey report was made public to play the OBC-EBC card and stall the BJP's campaign to win most of Bihar's 40 Lok Sabha seats.
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.
Lok Sabha on Monday witnessed another low with a member tearing a newspaper and throwing its pieces in the House, drawing strong condemnation from the Chair.
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.
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
Seeking a third straight term, Modi is not just looking to stamp his electoral dominance on India but also chasing history with another consecutive victory equalling first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's record.
No government bungalow in Delhi will henceforth be converted into any memorial, the Union Cabinet decided on Saturday, weeks after a row over Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh's demand for making his official residence a memorial of his father and former Prime Minister Charan Singh.
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.
Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien said the situation in Bihar is one of the reasons behind the Parliament session being cut short by the government.
According to BJP insiders, every Union minister has been given 3-4 seats to mentor and has been told to work hard on these constituencies in the next 20 months to ensure the party's victory.
Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil stressed the Centre was keen to see a government in the state soon.
Voting will be held on Thursday in bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states -- a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties.
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.
According to the sources, the meeting will be held at 10 am on Thursday in the chamber of Rajya Sabha LoP.
Angry protesters allegedly forced the two vehicles to stop and set them on fire.
Ahead of the day-long Opposition meeting on Friday, Samvad Bhavan, Rajkiye Atithisala and Sadaquat Ashram have got a facelift.
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 assailants knocked at the gates of Yadav's house around 5.30 am and opened fire as soon as he opened the gates,' the Bihar Police tweeted.
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.
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.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said that the President should inaugurate the new Parliament building and not the prime minister.
"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
The upcoming Opposition meet in Patna scheduled for next week will not discuss a possible prime ministerial candidate and will focus on deciding the common agenda for the parties to work on in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
'Lalu understands that his words can be used by rivals to consolidate Hindu votes which may damage the prospects of his party's social support base.'
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