The Bharatiya Janata Party got a shot in the arm on Monday with two sitting Independent members of the Lok Sabha from Bihar -- Putul Kumari and Om Prakash Yadav -- joining the party ahead of the general elections.
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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again led the BJP's campaign holding several rallies and stepping up his attack on Opposition parties, particularly the Congress.
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.
Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad's wife Rabri Devi and elder daughter Misa Bharti will contest the Lok Sabha polls, the party's first list of candidates has revealed.
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.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi accuses the BJP-led government of stealing votes with the help of the Election Commission during a rally in Siwan, Bihar.
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.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday sprang surprises with its first list of 71 candidates for the Bihar assembly polls, denying a ticket to Speaker Nand Kishore Yadav, a seven-term MLA, while fielding Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary in a direct election after over a decade.
'We share and support the ideology of the NDA and will not work against the NDA.'
'No one can ignore PK's prediction about Nitish Kumar's party.'
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.
M I Khan finds out why the dreaded Mohammad Shahabuddin's widow wants to leave the north Bihar district where her husband's word was once law.
The BJP's constitution mandates that the party should complete the process of electing block, district and state chiefs before it elects its national president.
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.
The EC order specifically asks the state government to shift Shahabuddin to a town/city not going to the polls in the second and third phases on February 15 and 23.
Nitish thought that his stakes as chief minister were far greater than his stakes in protecting one of his party MLAs. He could not allow his rule-of-law train to be derailed by a small rock on the track. On the contrary, if he removed it to keep the train moving at a steady speed he would gain strong public admiration and sympathy that would help him take the masses along in carrying out other tasks. A fascinating excerpt from Arun Sinha's Nitish Kumar And The Rise Of Bihar.
Acharya will contest from Saran while Bharti will try her luck in the Patliputra LS constituency.
'The Election Commission's involvement in the avoidable SIR controversy has carried a message down to the last voter -- who just does not like it,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Only in the event of the RSS managing to force Modi into accepting a consensual candidate, will the party not continue to 'being' the 'next Congress', observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'People are fed up with rising crimes and poor law and order.' 'Modi must have got feedback and decided not to touch the 'jungle raj' issue as it will backfire.'
The RJD has fielded six women candidates, some of them are wives of bahubalis.
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.
Five bridges, big and small, have collapsed across the state in just over a week. One incident each was reported from Araria, Siwan, East Champaran, Kishanganj and Madhubani districts.
A voter turnout of 10.82 per cent was recorded till 9 am on Saturday in 58 constituencies in six states and two Union territories where polling is underway in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
Majority of these constituencies are in Uttar Pradesh and the party that is on the third slot even as the counting is still underway on several seats is the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party neither with the National Democratic Alliance nor the opposition INDIA bloc.
Many bahubalis have fielded their wives and relatives as proxies.
'Prashant Kishor is a businessman before he is a politician, and given that the expected average turnout for JSP candidates is 5,000 to 6,000 votes and since Bihar has a significant number of seats where the margin between the winner and runner-up falls within that range he will capitalise on exactly that to showcase his presence.'
The RJD polled the highest vote share in Bihar, but it was not reflected in the number of seats it won.
The EC said polling percentage in the Anantnag-Rajouri seat in Jammu and Kashmir is the highest in 40 years.
An approximate voter turnout of 59.06 per cent was recorded in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Saturday in 58 constituencies across six states and two Union territories with the polling percentage in the Jangal Mahal region of West Bengal touching 78.19.
As the election nears, political positions on prohibition are shifting.
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.
The widow of Rajdeo Ranjan, the journalist who was gunned down, has said the killers had a connection with someone in jail.
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.
In a poor village of daily wage earners in Siwan, Bihar, people speak about their hard lives and why they vote.
A man, who had allegedly called up the Lok Sabha Secretariat on Monday and threatened to blow up Parliament building, was taken into custody in Bihar's Siwan district.
Justice Shivakirti Singh granted regular bail to the controversial Lok Sabha member from Siwan in connection with the case registered at Hussainganj police station in Siwan district against him in 2001 for illegally possessing sophisticated firearms. Shahabuddin will, however, not be released as he is serving life sentence for abducting and murdering a CPI-ML activist Chotelal Gupta on May 7, 1999.
Shahabuddin was recently shifted to Beur Jail in Patna from Siwan following the Election Commission's directive.
A Siwan court had sentenced him to life imprisonment for kidnapping a CPI-ML worker in 1999.
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