Manjhi's son Santosh Suman, who is a minister in the Nitish Kumar cabinet, made the statement a day after reports emerged that a seat-sharing formula has been arrived at in the National Democratic Alliance, and the HAM was likely to get only one of the state's 40 constituencies.
The second round of the voting was held in the 17 districts amid tight security and strict coronavirus guidelines in place. The voting percentage at 10.30 pm was 54.64, according to the Election Commissions Voter Turnout Apps provisionally data.
'Bringing in Dr Mohan Yadav as the Yadav-OBC face from Ujjain as chief minister, and a scheduled tribe leader Jagdish Devda from Mandsaur district, and a Brahmin face Rajendra Shukla from Rewa, the BJP is making an attempt to put in place a new caste equation in the state keeping an eye on the general elections next year.'
About 2.34 crore voters, spread across 78 assembly segments of the 243-strong assembly, will decide the fates of 1,204 candidates, including the Speaker and 12 members of the state cabinet.
He also said the Bihar chief electoral officer has already responded to everything. The EC held four press conferences on counting day on November 10 to respond to various aspects of the process, Arora pointed out.
Will a caste census make tens of millions desert Mr Modi?, asks Shekhar Gupta.
RJD president Lalu Prasad's daughter Rohini Acharya has entered the fray to wrest back her father's erstwhile pocket borough.
Once rolled out, theaterisation will be the biggest military reform in the country. It will see the creation of unified theatre commands within the 1.7 million-strong Indian armed forces.
The term of the 243-member Bihar legislative assembly comes to an end on November 29.
The death of the 74-year-old leader, who was identified with the state's Dalits for over five decades, so near the polls will mean that none of the LJP's rivals will like to attack the party and its young president strongly.
Polling is scheduled in all 13 seats of Punjab and four of Himachal Pradesh, 13 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha and three seats in Jharkhand besides Chandigarh.
More than two crore voters in Bihar will decide the fate of 1,066 candidates on Wednesday across 71 assembly segments in the first phase of elections.
Like the last time, Ghulam Nabi Azad is believed to have taken the lead in preparing and despatching the letter this time too.
Yadav scion also promised to scrap the notification in Bihar chief minister's tenure of the retirement of government employees at the age of 50.
The electoral exercise, the first since the Lok Sabha elections, will decide the fate of many veterans and some debutantes including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife Kamlesh Thakur.
'The BJP will use Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha to check Nitish Kumar.' 'They will not allow him to function freely as before.'
An 84-year-old man in the north Bihar district of Madhepura has caused a flutter with the claim that he has taken a dozen shots of the COVID-19 vaccine since every jab made him "feel better".
The Opposition grand alliance is proving to be a non-starter, with senior RJD leaders reluctant to be ordered about by an immature and entitled Tejashswi, observes Virendra Kapoor.
While the polling so far has been peaceful, police had to open fire in the air in Purnia to disperse a crowd trying to disturb voting, even as people boycotted polling at 12 booths in Katihar in protest against barriers not being set up at two railway crossings.
At the core of Nitish Kumar's decision was a cold political calculation. He assessed that the RJD's support base was unlikely to vote for JD-U candidates in the Lok Sabha polls. He was unsure of winning even half a dozen if he stayed with the RJD and the Congress.
A group of first time voters who run 10 km everyday to prepare for fauji recruitment rallies, tell Rediff.com's Archana Masih they need two things: quality education and jobs.
Many senior BJP leaders and outgoing Rajya Sabha MPs, including seven Union ministers such as Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupender Yadav, have not been renominated by the party for the biennial Rajya Sabha polls amid strong indications that several of them may contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
In a poor village of daily wage earners in Siwan, Bihar, people speak about their hard lives and why they vote.
Pronouncing the judgement, Justice Khanna said the court has rejected all the petitions, including those seeking resorting back to ballot papers in elections.
Intense heat swept through east India and parts of the southern peninsular region on Thursday, testing power grids and prompting the Kerala government to order closure of educational institutions till May 6.
The Bihar assembly election results appeared to belie predictions made by most exit polls which had given a clear edge to the Rashtriya Janata Dal-led Mahagathbandhan.
The final phase of polling on Saturday will cover 78 constituencies spread across 19 north Bihar districts.
Seeking to ensure secrecy of votes, the Election Commission has issued a set of dos and don'ts to the Bihar poll machinery.
'How do you apply indelible ink without coming into contact?' 'There have to be options for other activities like casting of vote where you press a button and that of the signature identifying oneself.' 'None of our procedures should lead to exposure to infections.'
There are 64 vacancies in the legislative assemblies of various states and one in Lok Sabha.
If the Chirag Paswan-led LJP posts a good result, the young leader could become a formidable caste challenger in the years to come and a permanent fixture as a BJP ally, reports Aditi Phadnis.
'Bihar's caste survey has bolstered the Opposition parties, but one shouldn't forget that the BJP is also trying to present itself as a party that cares for the OBCs more than other parties,' points out Sanjay Kumar.
The elections will begin on April 19 followed by subsequent phases on April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.
100 per cent coverage in Kerala and Pondicherry.
'Nitish may take such a decision because he was the first person who was with the INDIA front.' 'He went back only because he did not get proper encouragement from the Congress.' 'Nitish will take a decision provided there is a strong alternative.' 'If he feels ours is a weak coalition, he will not come.' 'Then, this government will continue for five years.'
This is something that Modi's critics are reluctant to accept: He is the most popular leader that India has seen since Indira Gandhi, says Vir Sanghvi.
If Modi's truly a reformer and a believer in minimum government, he would bury the Vodafone ghosts now. He would also then go to Bihar, campaigning on his politically controversial reforms. Both will need him to dip deep into his accumulated political capital and risk it, suggests Shekhar Gupta.
In India elections are never fought in a straight line. It's fought on many issues, at many levels, with multiple emotions and with a bit of good luck, too. Sheela Bhatt reports from Rajasthan.
Reacting to the results, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that in the by-elections held on 13 seats in seven states, the people of the country have given their support to the INDIA bloc.
