With the Bharatiya Janata Party-Janata Dal-United rift widening in Bihar, the Congress on Monday virtually ruled out a tie-up with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar if the alliance breaks, saying his "communal face" had been exposed.
They are the contenders, the leaders of parties that will finally form a government in Karnataka.
According to the police headquarters in Patna, "more than a dozen police personnel and power department employees" sustained injuries in the incident that took place barely "100 meters away from Barsoi police station".
The development comes a day ahead of the announcement of the panchayat and municipal poll results.
As the exit polls were sharply split on who would get to rule Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav on Saturday said their grand Mahagatbadhan alliance would win the Bihar Assembly polls with 190 seats.
In a clear counter to Narendra Modi's development plank, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday said his state would present the "real model" for progress which takes everyone along, while indicating that his support would be crucial for formation of next government at the Centre.
Amid a buzz that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar may emerge as the opposition's prime ministerial candidate, his party Janata Dal-United said on Friday if other parties want so, then this is an option.
Notably, Yadav, the younger son of Rashtriya Janata Dal's founding president Lalu Prasad, had steered the 'Mahagathbandhan', which then did not have the chief minister on its side, to an impressive electoral performance in 2020 assembly polls in which the National Democratic Alliance could barely scrape through.
Candidates contesting from Kunda (in Pratapgarh), Malhani (in Jaunpur), and Rasara (in Ballia) failed to secure enough votes to prevent forfeiture of their deposits.
According to a senior Congress leader, the constituents of the opposition alliance intend to move forward with the theme "Main Nahin, Hum (We, Not Me)" at the meeting.
He has served as a minister in all the previous National Democratic Alliance governments in Bihar. He was the minister for the road construction department in the last government.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
'It is not just about numbers. Sometimes coalitions and alliances have symbolic value.'
Both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were adjourned till 2 pm after opposition members held protest in Parliament seeking a discussion on the issue.
Mukesh Sahni's move to contest 55 seats in the UP assembly polls antagonised top BJP leaders.
Notably, BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis last week said incidents of 'love jihad were taking place in the country and therefore, laws to curb the practice were justified.
Even as the grand old party seeks to promote opposition unity ahead of the hustings next year, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, however, would be conspicuous by her absence at the event at Sree Kanteerava Stadium.
From issuing whips to arranging ambulances for their ailing leaders, opposition parties from the newly-formed Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc are making all-out efforts to ensure that they get 100 per cent attendance of their MPs in the Rajya Sabha to give the Bharatiya Janata Party a tough fight on the Delhi services bill next week.
The Bhartiya Janata Party along with the Lok Janshakti Party are all set to fight a pitched political battle against the ruling Janata Dal-United and also the Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal combine in Bihar. But there's one thing in common between the five major parties of the state -- all of them have fielded bahubalis, criminal-turned-politicians and their wives in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
Chirag Paswan cryptically added that he was not ruling out the possibility of siding with the RJD.
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Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Rabri Devi said Chief Minister Nitish Kumar does not have the strength to stop Narendra Modi from coming to Bihar, the way her husband Lalu Prasad Yadav had stopped L K Advani during his rath yatra in 1990.
Critics say that there's no 'Modi wave' in four Muslim-dominated parliamentary constituencies in Bihar's Seemanchal belt, but Bharatiya Janata Party leaders are hopeful to retain three out of the four seats here. In 2009 general elections, the BJP won in Purnea, Katihar and Araria but lost in Kishanganj.
'Whatever tricks the BJP may play, it will not be able to stop JD-U from becoming a national party by 2023'
The sources said the Congress is the binding force for the opposition bloc and the stronger the Congress emerges the better for the alliance.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, however, was conspicuous by her absence at the event, which was attended by tens of thousands of people as the Congress sought to promote opposition unity.
With Lalu Yadav's conviction in the fodder scam case, an alliance between the Congress and Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United should have been easier, but that may not be the case. Lalu and his militant Yadav clan will not make way for the two parties so easily, says Sheela Bhatt.
The Opposition members said that despite adequate availability of essential commodities, inflation was still high and government has failed to check the price line. Initiating a debate in the Lok Sabha on rise in prices of essential commodities, Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lalan (Janata Dal-United) said 85 crore (850 million) people in India were below the poverty line and despite this the government was not interested in checking inflation.
The ruling BJP has issued a whip to its MPs, asking them to ensure their presence in the House.
Nadda also claimed that the opposition in Bihar as well as elsewhere has become a "spent force" and asserted that the BJP is the only party which is being looked at by people with hope.
The ruling BJP in UP, however, lost Khatauli to Samajwadi Party ally Rashtriya Lok Dal.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The scale of victory could be gauged from the fact that from 143 seats in the 2005 elections, Kumar's campaign on the basis of his government's performance helped the ruling alliance notch a spectacular tally of 206 seats in the 243-member House.
Electoral trust is a non-profit organisation formed in India for orderly receiving of contributions from corporate entities and individuals to political parties.
The LJP, though, itself looked to have paid a big price in the process, as the Election Commission data showed that it could win just one seat while drawing around 5.7 per cent of votes. Paswan's party has, however, been instrumental in the JD-U's loss in at least 30 seats.
Ruling constituent Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Thursday joined the opposition in stalling proceedings in Lok Sabha and leading street protest in New Delhi on the issue of the new sugarcane policy and vowed to struggle till the ordinance to fix a uniform price is withdrawn.
The party was trounced in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and is now left with only Himachal Pradesh in the north. It is ruling in only three states on its own and is in power in Bihar and Jharkhand as a junior partner in alliance with regional parties.
Baidyanath Prasad was a senior Janata Dal-United leader.
Rashtriya Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad Yadav on Monday downplayed reports of a split within his party even as he said that he was inquiring into the matter.
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