The BJP and JD(U) will each contest on 101 seats in the Bihar assembly elections, while the LJP will field candidates on 29 seats. Other NDA partners will contest on fewer seats.
Electoral fortunes of 1,302 candidates, including over half a dozen ministers in the Nitish Kumar government, will be sealed on Tuesday with 3.70 crore voters eligible to exercise their franchise across 122 assembly segments in the second and final phase of the Bihar polls.
Janata Dal-United supremo Nitish Kumar is set to be sworn-in as Bihar chief minister for a record 10th time on Thursday, days after the National Democratic Alliance secured a landslide victory in the assembly elections.
'Every party want to contest more seats, nothing wrong in it. We have to compromise to take all together as the NDA.'
The counting began at 8 am to decide the fate of the candidates contesting the polls, among whom all eyes will be on Dimple Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav's elder daughter-in-law and the wife of Akhilesh Yadav, who is contesting from the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, necessitated by the demise of Samajwadi Party veteran Mulayam Singh Yadav in October.
The BSP leader won the Bijnor Lok Sabha seat in 1989, her first electoral triumph.
The SP president and the RLD chief announced the tie-up on social media for the general elections later this year.
It was speculated that Rohini was "unhappy" over the expulsion of Tej Pratap Yadav from the party. However, during the assembly elections, she was seen campaigning for Tejashwi.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Rahul Gandhi are set to address public rallies in Bihar on Wednesday in support of their respective party nominees. Other leaders will also campaign ahead of the upcoming elections.
Each leader will look after six assembly constituencies.
Most of these leaders are known for their organisational skills and successful management of elections in their respective states.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is expected to achieve a clear majority in Rajya Sabha after bye-elections for 12 seats scheduled next month, which would help the party get the nod for key legislations such as the Waqf (Amendment) Bill.
The outcome of the polls to the Rajya Sabha is likely to have an impact in the politically crucial state just ahead of the general elections in the country.
The BSP has not entered into any alliances and has also been keen to shed the tag of being a 'B-team' of the BJP.
The Election Commission on Monday rescheduled from November 13 to November 20 the assembly bypolls to all nine and four seats in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, respectively, and one seat in Kerala in view of festivals, an official statement said.
The former Bihar minister, who lost the election from Mahua assembly seat, voiced his sentiments in support of his sister Rohini Acharya in a post on his X handle, blaming the crisis on 'Jaichand', a metaphor for traitors.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) asserts that major political parties participated in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, deploying booth level agents despite opposing the exercise in the Supreme Court. The ECI defends its authority to conduct the revision to maintain the integrity of elections.
'We share and support the ideology of the NDA and will not work against the NDA.'
Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar's decision to allow Singh to speak on the Bharat Ratna honour to Charan Singh drew sharp protest from the Congress, leading to a heated exchange of words between the opposition and the treasury benches.
The share of none of the above (NOTA) option went up marginally this time in the Bihar assembly polls as compared to the last elections but is still much lower than 2015, data shared by the Election Commission shows.
The Congress on Friday alleged that the election results in Bihar reflect 'vote chori on a gigantic scale' with Rahul Gandhi vowing an in-depth review of the outcome and saying, 'we could not achieve victory in such an election that was not fair from the very beginning.'
A court in Bihar's Sheikhpura district has issued summonses to INDIA bloc leaders Rahul Gandhi, Tejashwi Yadav, and Mukesh Sahani in connection with alleged abuses hurled at Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a Congress event in August.
'Age matters and the way Tejashwi has been doing an aggressive campaign, only a young leader like him can do it.'
Bihar's opposition Mahagathbandhan is experiencing internal conflict following their defeat in the recent assembly elections. Congress leaders have expressed dissatisfaction with their alliance with the RJD, leading to a blame game and further disarray within the opposition camp.
Given Modi's track record from the time he became Gujarat chief minister in October 2001, it is highly improbable that Nabin will get opportunities to display his individual capacity. Even the team of organisational leaders that he will 'appoint' in a few weeks or months, will unlikely to be his choice, predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) expelled 16 leaders, including a sitting MLA and two former ministers, for anti-party activities ahead of the assembly elections. The expelled leaders were charged with violating the party's ideology and working against official NDA candidates.
Among the national parties, the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist opposed the proposal, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National People's Party supported it.
Chirag Paswan has warned the BJP-led NDA that it will settle for nothing less than 40-plus seats in the 2025 Bihar polls, even threatening to contest all 243 constituencies independently if sidelined.
The Jan Suraaj Party announced its second list of candidates for the Bihar assembly elections, covering 65 constituencies. The party has kept its choice for the Raghopur seat, where founder Prashant Kishor is expected to contest, under wraps. The list includes candidates from various sections of society, including the extremely weaker sections, Other Backward Classes, and Muslims.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United made public the names of candidates for all 101 seats it will be contesting in the assembly polls, with more than half of them from the backward and extremely backward classes.
Bharatiya Janata Party's National Democratic Alliance partners have got five cabinet ministerial berths in the third term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as against none in the outgoing government, given the party's dependence on allies for a majority in the Lok Sabha.
The Bihar chief minister had a point to prove in the latest assembly elections, which were held amid speculations of a fatigue factor, if not downright anti-incumbency, made worse by rumours of his indifferent health.
With the RLD part of the NDA now, Sanjeev Kumar Balyan would expect an easier contest than five years back when the RLD, SP and BSP had an alliance.
The opposition INDIA bloc has declared RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav as its chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming Bihar assembly elections.
RJD president Lalu Prasad's daughter Rohini Acharya has strongly criticized those who accused her of donating a 'filthy kidney' to her father and challenged them to an open debate. She also urged people to donate kidneys to those in need in Lalu Prasad's name.
The video is said to be of Mokama, which falls under Lalan's Munger Lok Sabha seat, where the former Janata Dal-United president's defence of party candidate Anant Singh in a murder case has already drawn flak from the Opposition.
The Congress claimed that dynastic politics exists across party lines and also hailed the Nehru-Gandhi family's leadership.
In the morning, he offered prayers at the Dashashwamedh Ghat and the Kaal Bhairav temple in Varanasi.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand. The bypolls, however, will not have any direct impact on the respective legislative assemblies. The results will be declared on November 23. In Uttar Pradesh, polling will be held in Katehari, Karhal, Meerapur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, Sisamau, Khair, Phulpur and Kundarki. Ninety candidates are in the fray in these seats with the maximum of 14 in Ghaziabad. This will be the first electoral test of the INDIA bloc as well as the NDA in the politically-crucial state after the Lok Sabha elections. In Punjab, bypolls will be held in four assembly seats - Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal (SC) and Barnala. The bypolls were necessitated after MLAs representing them were elected to the Lok Sabha. Polling will also be held for the Palakkad seat in Kerala and Kedarnath in Uttarakhand.
A stampede-like situation was witnessed on Monday outside 10, Circular Road, the bungalow allotted to the RJD supremo's wife Rabri Devi, a former CM, when the couple returned from Delhi, where they had appeared before a court.
Pradhan, who had filed his nomination on Wednesday, said he accepts the decision of party national president Akhilesh Yadav, who he met in the morning.
