Amidst speculation over the NDA seat-sharing deal in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar distributed JD(U) tickets, while the BJP announced its first list of candidates. The INDIA bloc also faces internal challenges as parties prepare for the upcoming elections.
Having struck a seat-sharing deal, leaders of the Janata Dal-United and the Bharatiya Janata Party sat across the table in Patna on Monday to thrash out, among other things, constituencies they planned to swap or give up in favour of smaller allies in Bihar.
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 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.
The National Democratic Alliance was set to sweep the Bihar assembly polls, surging ahead in over 200 of 243 seats on Friday with the Bharatiya Janata Party emerging as single largest party with about 90 per cent strike rate, reaffirming the popularity and campaign clout of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was the face of the ruling alliance through the poll battle in the highly sensitive political state.
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.
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.
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.
'Every party want to contest more seats, nothing wrong in it. We have to compromise to take all together as the NDA.'
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 BSP has not entered into any alliances and has also been keen to shed the tag of being a 'B-team' of the BJP.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'We share and support the ideology of the NDA and will not work against the NDA.'
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 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.
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.
In the morning, he offered prayers at the Dashashwamedh Ghat and the Kaal Bhairav temple in Varanasi.
'Age matters and the way Tejashwi has been doing an aggressive campaign, only a young leader like him can do it.'
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.'
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.
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.
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.
Days after Jayant Chaudhary's terse 'not a coin, won't flip' response to the BJP's apparent attempt to woo him, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the Rashtriya Lok Dal chief was a 'kid with little knowledge of history'.
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.
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.
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.
Another Congress ally, the Rashtriya Lok Dal on Thursday came out in support of yoga guru Baba Ramdev's campaign against black money and corruption, with the latter saying he will put a fresh proposal before the government during the coming monsoon session of Parliament
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 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.
Sources in the Congress Party have said that the Rashtriya Lok Dal leader is likely to be given the civil aviation portfolio and will contest 45 to 50 seats in western UP. Renu Mittal reports.
