The BJP has announced its candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections across multiple states, including Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Odisha, and Haryana.
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is responsible for the maintenance of 71 monuments and archaeological sites of national importance in Bihar, according to information provided to Parliament.
Meira Kumar was elected Lok Sabha Speaker unanimously on Wednesday.
A look at the past speakers of the Lok Sabha.
Medhavi Kirti, the granddaughter of late veteran Congress leader Babu Jagjiwan Ram, has been campaigning against her aunt Meira Kumar, Lok Sabha Speaker and Congress candidate from Sasaram Lok Sabha seat in Bihar.
The Voter Adhikar Yatra, led by Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav before the Bihar Assembly polls, failed to deliver electoral gains for the Mahagathbandhan, with the NDA winning across its route.
A police constable sustained injuries after falling near Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's vehicle during the Voter Adhikar Yatra in Nawada, Bihar. The incident sparked political reactions and accusations.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday said his party will soon come out with a 'hydrogen bomb' of revelations about 'vote chori' and after that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not be able to show his face to the country.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi intensified his attack on the Election Commission, accusing them of 'vote chori' and warning of action if the INDIA bloc forms the government. He alleged a 'new special package' for Bihar, named SIR (Special Intensive Revision), is a 'new form of vote theft'.
Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, IT expert Nandan Nilekani and cricketer Mohd Kaif are among 194 candidates as Congress tonight released the first list of its nominees for Lok Sabha polls that contains several new and young faces.
Gandhi alleged that assembly and Lok Sabha polls were being "stolen" across the country and there was a "conspiracy" in Bihar to do the same through the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
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.
The swearing-in ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP national president J P Nadda and several other top leaders of the NDA.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has launched a 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' in Bihar to advocate for fair elections and protect voting rights, alleging irregularities in electoral rolls and accusing the BJP of attempting to disenfranchise voters.
Internal discord within the INDIA bloc has led to alliance partners contesting against each other in at least eight assembly seats in Bihar. The Congress, RJD, and Left parties are facing challenges in seat-sharing arrangements for the upcoming elections.
Opposition INDIA Bloc leaders are considering an impeachment notice against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over concerns about voter roll revision in Bihar and alleged vote theft. The move comes after the CEC addressed a press conference without addressing the opposition's questions.
This will be the first time the BJP has got more seats than Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led JD-U in Bihar, underscoring the change in their equations after they joined hands a few months back.
Rahul Gandhi has spoken to Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav about the Begusarai seat, but the CPI is unwilling to give up the seat.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal, which had suffered decimation in the last general elections, was leading in five seats, out of 23 where it had fielded candidates.
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.
According to the Election Commission data, 30 out of the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats went to the BJP-led coalition in the latest elections, a sharp drop compared with 39 in 2019 and lower than the tallies of 2014 (31) and 2009 (32).
As the election nears, political positions on prohibition are shifting.
The RJD polled the highest vote share in Bihar, but it was not reflected in the number of seats it won.
The Mahagathbandhan's seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls was over.
Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar is likely to campaign for two Congress candidates in Lok Sabha polls in Bihar sources said on Thursday. "Sachin will campaign for former Delhi police chief Nikhil Kumar and Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar in the upcoming polls," a Congress leader close to Kumar said.
Almost a fortnight after former bureaucrat K P Ramaiah took voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Service, he is ready to take on Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, a former Indian Foreign Service officer, in the Lok Sabha polls from the Sasaram seat in Bihar.
His scheduled visit to Sashastra Seema Bal's Patna Frontier on Sunday morning was cancelled due to 'unavoidable reasons', a statement said.
'The Congress is trying to reinvent itself -- the caste census demand, OBC emphasis, the anti-corporate thrust, especially on Adani etc -- all this is not standard Congress strategy.'
Kumar is registered in the voters' list at her Delhi address of New Friends Colony and since she is now confined to the Sasaram parliamentary constituency from where she is contesting as a Congress candidate, the Speaker will not be able to cast her vote in the national capital, sources in her election office at Mohania said.
A diplomat-turned-politician, she took the initiative to organise a number of international seminars hosted by Indian Parliament since she took oath as the Speaker on June 3, 2009.
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has ruled out her resignation from Congress as suggested by her predecessor Somnath Chatterjee. "There is no convention that the Speaker should resign from the primary membership of his or her party. I will function with the same impartiality towards Congress and the other parties in the Lok Sabha," she said.
Upset over not getting a Lok Sabha ticket, former Bihar Congress chief Mehboob Ali Kaiser could join Lok Janshakti Party, led by Ram Vilas Paswan, in a couple of days.
There was no addition to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar's jewellery though their value increased while her wealth rose by over three-and-a-half times since the 2009 general elections with the total value of her assets declared to be more than Rs 36 crore.
Shatrughan Sinha and Kirti Azad certain to be axed along with Union minister R K Singh and former minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy.
'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.'
The final phase saw voting in all 13 seats of Punjab and an equal number of seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight seats each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, four in Himachal Pradesh, three in Jharkhand and the lone seat Chandigarh.
Acts of violence were witnessed outside Congress and RJD headquarters in Bihar.
Two Central Reserve Police Force jawans were killed and three others injured when Maoists triggered an explosive, when they were on way to a polling station in Jamui parliamentary constituency of Bihar early morning, the police said.
Daughter of former deputy PM late Jagjivan Ram, Kumar, 72, was also the first woman to occupy the high office of the LS speaker
Paswan was a minister under six different prime ministers, hardly out of government since he was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1977, observes Virendra Kapoor.
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