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 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.'
A careful calculation of the BJP's support base seems to have been at work in the cabinet expansion that took place a day after the party's national president chaired a meeting of the "core group" here.
Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday issued a three-line whip to all of its Lok Sabha MPs asking them to be present in the House for the passing of the Union Budget 2025-26.
While the BJP went back to the drawing board to recraft its political and governance outreach and regained momentum by notching up surprisingly big wins in a string of assembly polls, the burst of fresh optimism in the main opposition Congress and other INDIA bloc parties fizzled out.
Sale and consumption of alcohol was completely banned in Bihar by the Nitish Kumar government in April, 2016.
The order issued by Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla is a slight modification of the reopening guidelines issued on September 30 where the political gatherings were allowed from October 15. The political gatherings can be held only outside the containment zones.
Bypolls are due in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
The development can change the power dynamics within the ruling alliance, even if it manages to retain power in the state and Kumar continues to be chief minister.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar left the dais before the national anthem at the inauguration of an international sports event in Patna, sparking controversy. Opposition RJD president Lalu Prasad and his son Tejashwi Yadav accused the chief minister of disrespecting the national anthem. The Sepak Takraw World Cup 2025 is being held at the Pataliputra Sports Complex, with 300 players and support staff from 21 countries taking part. Kumar, 74, walked towards the participants and greeted them with a "namaste" and a wave of the hand before the national anthem was played. A video clip of the incident was shared on social media by Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi Yadav, who both alleged that the chief minister "disrespected the national anthem".
Sources said the Congress, which has 19 legislators in the Bihar assembly, will go by what the Rashtriya Janata Dal decides and its presence will help strengthen the coalition.
The 243-member assembly is witnessing a fierce competition for the chief minister's post, and as per current trends, the NDA is comfortably ahead of the Opposition camp.
Nitish Kumar wants to assure the BJP leadership that he will continue to be a part of the NDA. But he also wants to secure a larger number of seats for his party in the 2025 assembly elections in Bihar.
'The RJD is a family centric party and its top leadership's main concern is only to promote the family.'
With four seats each won by junior allies Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular and Vikassheel Insaan Party, the NDA bagged 125 seats in its kitty, three more than the number required for a simple majority.
Taking part in a debate on the motion of confidence moved by the new 'mahagathbandhan' government, Yadav accused the BJP of having tried to 'break' Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party in a bid to 'wipe out socialist ideology'.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced that it will set up mobile phone deposit counters at polling stations to ensure that voters do not have to carry their phones inside the polling booth. This decision was taken after it was observed that several voters were concealing their phones in their clothes due to the absence of a facility to deposit it. The ECI has also rationalized the permissible norms for canvassing in line with the electoral laws to 100 meters from the entrance of the polling station.
Bihar assembly elections which are to be announced shortly are expected to be five-phased and around 50,000 paramilitary personnel will be deployed in each phase to ensure peaceful polling.
'The BJP will use Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha to check Nitish Kumar.' 'They will not allow him to function freely as before.'
After reaching Patna on Thursday night, Shakti Singh Gohil, Congress's Bihar in-charge, asserted that the situation won't have risen had RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav been out of jail. Lalu is serving a sentence in a fodder scam case in present-day Jharkhand.
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).
The Election Commission on Thursday asked its Delhi chief electoral officer to probe the Aam Aadmi Party's complaints against Bharatiya Janata Party leader Parvesh Verma and allegations of additions and deletions in the electoral roll of the New Delhi assembly seat.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar engaged in a heated exchange with Leader of the Opposition Rabri Devi in the Legislative Council, dismissing her as "inconsequential" without her husband, RJD president Lalu Prasad. The spat stemmed from RJD MLCs wearing badges promoting quota hikes passed during Tejashwi Yadav's tenure as Deputy CM, which Nitish Kumar perceived as an attempt to claim credit for the populist move. Kumar also remarked that Rabri Devi was only propped up by her husband when he was in trouble, referring to her becoming Chief Minister in 1997 while Lalu Prasad faced corruption charges. The war of words between the two rivals has intensified, with the RJD accusing Kumar of losing his mental balance and being unfit to rule.
Attacking the Nitish government over policy discrepancies, RJD scion claimed that the health and education sectors were in shambles under the current government.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday apologised in both Houses of the legislature, as well as outside, for remarks made a day before on the importance of women's education to control population growth.
Subhashini Yadav, a social worker, said she is taking the responsibility of carrying on the fight of the 'Mahagathbandhan' in Bihar, as her father Sharad Yadav has always supported it.
The BJP holds 28 of the 59 Rajya Sabha seats that will soon face election.
If everything goes according to the plan, the exercise will begin after the Lok Sabha elections, the official said.
The message from Sunday's event will undoubtedly reverberate globally. It's a landmark occasion that will be remembered for generations and will inspire many other states to introduce the story of Rajendra Chola into school curricula, says Tarun Vijay.
In a letter, dated February 16, 2024, issued by the Cabinet Secretariat department, headed by the CM, officials of the Health, Road Construction, Urban Development and Housing and Rural Works departments have been asked to review the decisions taken during the previous grand alliance government in the state.
A high-level committee on Thursday recommended simultaneous elections for Lok Sabha and state assemblies as the first step followed by synchronised local body polls within 100 days.
Lok Janshakti Party MP Mehboob Ali Kaiser, the lone Muslim to have been elected to the Lok Sabha from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in Bihar, joined the Rashtriya Janata Dal on Sunday, in a shot in the arm for the opposition party amid the elections.
Centre has told the Supreme Court that it will soon make public Bihar governor Buta's reports which led to the dissolution of the assembly in the state.
With the National Democratic Alliance retaining power in Bihar albeit with a narrow three-seat majority, workers from both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal-United celebrated by bursting crackers and distributing sweets.
The LJP received 5.68 per cent of votes while contesting on nearly 140 seats in the elections to the 243-seat Bihar assembly.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has scored high in terms of winning percentage in the Bihar assembly polls, while its partner Janata Dal-United has performed relatively poorly.
Kumar, who heads the Janata Dal-United, moved the motion soon after the House passed a proposal for the removal of Rashtriya Janata Dal's Awadh Bihari Chaudhary as Speaker of the assembly.
Amid this unrest came the verdict of the Allahabad high court on June 12, 1975 that found Gandhi guilty over discrepancies in the electoral campaign, which led to the Emergency on the night of June 25.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai has announced that his government will introduce a new stringent law to prevent religious conversion of tribal people, and possibly others. He also advocated for the delisting of tribals, removing them from the Scheduled Tribe category if they convert to another religion, saying it will prevent proselytisation.
