In a poor village of daily wage earners in Siwan, Bihar, people speak about their hard lives and why they vote.
'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'
Tens of thousands of farmers gathered in Muzaffarnagar town on Friday to attend a mahapanchayat in support of the Bharatiya Kisan Union-led protest against the Centre's new farm laws in Ghazipur on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border.
The poll results will depend much on whether the caste and community coalition worked out by Akhilesh can withstand the onslaught of the Hindutva forces who have increased their efforts to polarise the electorate on communal lines.
He said his 'Rashtra Manch', a political action group, would start a movement against the policies of the Centre.
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.
Political observers are keen to see if the BJP will now be guided by its more firmly entrenched ideological dominance in picking a face solidly identified with its core planks, or if it will choose a person tilted more to its electoral calculations. Or, whether its pick will be an ode to its core supporters or a outreach to relatively new groups of votaries.
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.
'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.'
An Allahabad high court bench of Justice Shekhar Yadav had on Thursday last urged the government and the poll panel to consider postponing the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections for a month or two and banning all political rallies amid the fears of an impending third wave of Covid.
Rashtriya Lok Dal Ajit Singh on Friday attacked the government for rejecting his demand for converting the bungalow occupied by him into a memorial to his father, former Prime Minister Charan Singh, and blamed it for protests over the issue.
Meanwhile, the Congress said that that it is ready to go it alone in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha election.
In the second phase on April 18, 97 seats,spread across 13 states and one Union Territory, will go to the polls.
According to the sources, the meeting will be held at 10 am on Thursday in the chamber of Rajya Sabha LoP.
Ahead of the day-long Opposition meeting on Friday, Samvad Bhavan, Rajkiye Atithisala and Sadaquat Ashram have got a facelift.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said that the President should inaugurate the new Parliament building and not the prime minister.
In January, Nitish Kumar assured the Rajputs that he has been making efforts to release Anand Mohan from jail.
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.
Hours before Union Home Minister Amit Shah's virtual rally in Bihar on Sunday, Rashtriya Janata Dal leaders and workers staged protests, beating utensils and blowing conch shells against what their leader Tejashwi Yadav dubbed as the ruling party's celebration of the devastation caused by COVID-19 and the lockdown.
Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad's 'samdhi' Chandrika Roy has been nominated by the Janata Dal- United from his traditional Parsa assembly seat, but name of the former Director General of Police Gupteshwar Pandey is missing from the list of 115 candidates released by the party on Wednesday.
Some parties, including the Congress, also demanded immediate sacking of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Kumar Mishra, following Samyukt Kisan Morcha's allegation that his son was travelling in one of the vehicles involved in the incident.
'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.'
Ahead of the Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday talked to allies, informing them about the intent to withdraw the controversial Ordinance on convicted lawmakers.
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.
Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh, BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad and two BJP MPs were on Monday detained by the police after they attempted to enter UP to visit violence-hit Muzaffarnagar district.
Kumar will be administered the oath of office by Governor Phagu Chauhan at a simple ceremony inside the Raj Bhavan at 2 pm.
The opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will hold a 'maha rally' at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan on March 31 to safeguard the country's interests and democracy, Aam Aadmi Party leader Gopal Rai said on Sunday.
In terms of electoral fortunes, in all likelihood, the status quo is not going to change in any significant manner. These six seats from Bihar are unlikely to give any clear signal to UPA, NDA or Federal Front.
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 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.
Additionally, the Lower House will have 442 candidates, who have assets running into the crores. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attributed the impressive show by his party to the "alert voters" who he said rejected the 'mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) of opposition parties.
Chief ministers and other senior leaders made last-minute appeals to voters for their support in Mokama and Gopalganj of Bihar, Adampur of Haryana, Manugoda of Telangana, Gola Gorakhnath of Uttar Pradesh and Dhamnagar of Odisha.
The JD-U appears unwilling to become the BJP's second-string. A senior leader said, "If the BJP demands that the 2014 polls be made the yardstick for seat-sharing in 2019, we will insist the results of the last assembly polls become the criterion for the next state election." Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
The final phase of polling on Saturday will cover 78 constituencies spread across 19 north Bihar districts.
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.
Of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state, BJP will contest 20, while the JD-U, LJP and RLSP will contest 12, five and two seats respectively.
RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale met with the leadership of the UP BJP, including Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, state BJP President Bhupendra Chaudhary and state BJP General Secretary (Organisation) Dharmapal.
The manifesto also vowed to carry out caste-based census in 2020-21.
The longest-serving chief minister of any Hindi- speaking state, Nitish Kumar seems to have acquired an aura of indispensability when it comes to the highest seat of power in Bihar.
