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.
Five Congress ministers lose. Only Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi win.
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.
The party, however, has retained state president Naresh Uttam.
Bihar being in the grip of a Dusshera festival mood, leaders of rival political groups including Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav on Tuesday used examples of slaying of Ravana to attack each other.
He was exasperated over the demands for suspending the Question Hour as the House met for the day.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was an experienced leader and it would be great if a proposal came to make him the convenor of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
As many as 48 ministers of National Democratic Allaince government were in the fray in the general elections.
Chandrashekhar also known as Ravan, 30, was arrested in June 2017 in connection with the May 5 clashes in which one person was killed and 16 others were injured at Shabbirpur village in Saharanpur.
M Thambidurai, leader of the All India Anna Dravida Munetra Kazhagam in Parliament, was unanimously elected as Lok Sabha's deputy speaker on Wednesday, making him the first leader to occupy the post twice.
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.
In a poor village of daily wage earners in Siwan, Bihar, people speak about their hard lives and why they vote.
The condition of Kushwaha, the former Union Minister, is all right, although he has been advised rest, hospital sources said.
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.
Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav had thrown barbs at the prime minister over his having no family.
The Congress has not released a poll manifesto but a declaration of appeasement.
The RJD will give one seat to the CPI-ML from its quota and former JD-U president Sharad Yadav will contest on RJD symbol.
Allegations of electronic voting machines malfunctioningreturned to haunt the Election Commission as four Lok Sabha seats and nine assembly constituencies went for bypolls on Monday across 10 states with moderate-to-heavy voting amid prestige at stake for the Bharatiya Janata Party as well as opposition parties ahead of the 2019 general elections.
On chances of taking uncle Shivpal Yadav's Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia along in the polls, he said, "I dont have any problem in this. He and his men will be given due honour".
Soon after the suspension of 33 opposition Lok Sabha MPs, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said all democratic norms have been thrown into the dustbin by this "autocratic" government and it has shown zero accountability towards Parliament.
Successive elections have demonstrated that the BJP campaign switches towards polarisation when it is faced with palpable discontent among the electorate, notes Utkarsh Mishra.
Uttar Pradesh assembly session began on a stormy note on Wednesday as legislators raised anti-government slogans and two of them took off their shirts protesting over various issues.
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.
'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.'
'I felt anguished when I read the reports about my speech at the convocation of Mahatma Gandhi Central University. I wanted to underscore that the then Congress government had wanted to set up a central university only in Gaya but agreed to establish another one in Motihari (East Champaran) at my instance. Work began when the BJP was in power at the Centre. But it remains the fact that the university came up as a result of my initiative'
Ghulam Nabi Azad said this was just a beginning of the alliance process and the nitty-gritty would be decided in the next one or two days.
Assembly elections in Bihar, where the Bharatiya Janata Party is set for a battle against a united Janata Parivar, are likely to be held sometime in September-October when extensive central forces and a reworked expenditure monitoring system will be deployed to curb money and muscle power.
While the assembly elections are being seen as largely a contest between the NDA and the Grand Alliance, the state has been witness to mushrooming of "morchas" (fronts) which may queer the pitch for the lead players in a tight contest.
With the Biju Janata Dal backing the National Democratic Alliance's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu, the vote share of the ruling dispensation has now crossed 50 percent, virtually paving the way for her election as the first tribal President and the youngest too.
Ending months of speculation, expelled Samajwadi Party leader leaders Amar Singh and Jaya Prada joined the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal on Monday ahead of Lok Sabha polls.
The party is using the two year occasion to launch its election campaign in the state, which was key to them reaching simple majority in the Lok Sabha in 2014.
A worker from Punjab who was injured in Wednesday's terror attack in Srinagar's Habba Kadal area died at the SKIMS hospital in Srinagar on Thursday morning, taking the toll to two in the first targeted killing of the year by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir.
"'So ja bete nahi to Gabbar Singh aa jayega'. Mothers, who have seen the jungle raj days in Bihar, please do tell your children, especially youth, on the polling day to cast their votes carefully, otherwise they (the RJD) may return to power... those who ran a regime of terror and fear," he told a press conference.
'Everyone relies on caste to win elections in Bihar.'
Uncertainty shadows the composition of the two main political alliances in Bihar with several parties still exploring their choices as the Election Commission on Friday announced the schedule for the assembly polls.
Banda chief judicial magistrate Bhagwan Das Gupta appointed Garima Singh, additional chief judicial magistrate (MP-MLA Court Banda) as the investigating officer in the case, the official said.
Kushwaha said Kumar remarks that the JD-U would not join the Modi cabinet reminded him of 'sour grapes'.
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.
While Rahul loyalists were keen that he be given the post, a leader known to be close to him said, "If he does not become the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, then he should quit politics."
Swami Prasad Maurya's resignation has forced the BJP to focus again on its outreach among OBCs.
