After a drubbing in the Bihar assembly polls, Krishnakumar Padmanabhan finds that Congress workers are sceptical about Rahul Gandhi's charisma working in the TN polls.
Barring a few exceptions, most known criminal-politicians and their wives, who contested the Bihar assembly polls emerged winners on Wednesday. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United,and its ally Bharatiya Janata Party, top the list of parties with poll winners who have a criminal background.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday claimed that victory of the Janata Dal-United-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance in the Bihar assembly elections reflects the national mood against Congress party.
In spite of the Election Commission's repeated pleas against the criminalisation of politics, few political parties have paid any heed to it and have continued to field candidates with a dubious record in the forthcoming Bihar assembly polls.
The Election Commission has examined the menace of "paid news" that was rampant during the last Lok Sabha elections and decided to include the cost of such news in the expenditure of candidates to check if they exceed the ceiling on expenditure by resorting to "paid news" instead of issuing advertisements
Former chief minister Jagannath Mishra was also found guilty in the case pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.62 crore from the Chaibasa treasury in the 1990s.
Start afresh! This is the message of Congress President Sonia Gandhi to partymen from Bihar in the wake of the party's drubbing in the recently concluded Bihar assembly polls.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday summoned party general secretary in-charge of Bihar Mukul Wasnik and asked him to explain his position on the allegation that he had sough financial favours to allot seats in the recent Bihar assembly elections, where the party faced a thorough drubbing.
New Delhi is witnessing a spurt of political activity over the Goods and Services Tax Bill.
Rahul Gandhi, the All-India Congress Committee general-secretary and the man leading the revival of the party's youth wing, may have suffered a setback in the Bihar assembly elections. But his supporters are putting a distance between the Congress defeat and the 'Rahul effect'.
On Tuesday, the Nitish Kumar-led government decided to withdraw 32 personnel of Bihar Military Police posted at the former Bihar CM's residence.
The Bihar assembly election and the agreement on Nuclear liability bill between Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party had a magical political impact on an Iftar event organised by Member of Parliament and BJP leader Syed Shahnawaz Hussein in New Delhi on Wednesday evening.
The schedule for the Bihar assembly polls, which will be held in five phases, is likely to be announced by Saturday. Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi and Election Commissioner V S Sampath held detailed meetings with Home Secretary G K Pillai and chiefs of central police organisations to discuss the deployment of forces in the state during the polls.According to sources, the poll schedule is almost ready and it is being given its final touches.
Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav has termed Wednesday's landslide victory of the National Democratic Alliance in the Bihar assembly polls as mysterious and also said that his party will review their defeat.
Given Nitish's track record as an accomplished trapeze artist who can dump the BJP overnight and embrace the RJD, he can leave the saffron party stranded should he fail to get the chief ministerial crown for the fourth time, notes Virendra Kapoor.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani on Wednesday demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should immediately respond to the Supreme Court's observation on the delay in the prosecution of former telecom minister A Raja in the 2G spectrum allocation issue. "The PM should immediately respond to what the Supreme Court has said on Raja issue," Advani said. He said, "We are demanding a probe by a joint parliamentary committee into the issue in Parliament."
The JD-U said that the conduct of the two leaders in recent past has made it clear that they don't want to abide by the party's discipline. Both leaders have been critical of the party president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over the CAA/NRC issue.
Noting that it was his government that had recommended a CBI probe into the actor's death, Kumar said the incident saddened both the state and the country.
The man who has studied Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar from a vantage position in Patna's corridors of power speaks to Sheela Bhatt about the upcoming Bihar assembly election.
In a country where 'booth-capturing' and open intimidation of voters used to be a part of the poll processes until not very long ago -- and remains a factor even now - postal vote can challenge the very credibility of the electoral process as a whole, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Barclays, the global brokerage firm, also stated that the election verdict could lead to a weakness in the stock market.
Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president Mehboob Ali Kaiser and Congress Legislative Party leader Ashok Ram figure in a list of 77 candidates announced by the Congress for the six-phase Bihar assembly elections beginning on October 21. While Kaiser, who was appointed the PCC chief a few months ago, will be contesting from Simri Bakhtiarpur segment, Ram will fight the elections from Kusheshwar Asthan seat.
Taking strong exception to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar describing RJD chief Lalu Prasad as "king of terror", the party on Wednesday said it would move the Election Commission seeking action against the JD-U leader for breaching model code of conduct in place for Bihar Assembly polls.
In the video, Abdul Jalil Mastan, who is the state excise and prohibition minister, was heard telling the crowd that it was the PM who had said that if he failed to end people's woes within 50 days of demonetisation, he was prepared to face any punishment.
Favouring continuation of the 'old arrangement' during the Bihar assembly polls, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday left it to the Bharatiya Janata Party to decide whether Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi will campaign for the party during elections. "The BJP has to solve this. We are in favour of the old arrangement," Kumar told reporters while referring to the Janata Dal - United's opposition to the presence of Modi during the campaign in the Lok Sabha elections.
A flip-flop by a Bharatiya Janata Party leader that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi will campaign in the Bihar assembly elections on Monday set off fresh strains in the party's ties with Janata Dal-United, which threatened to review the alliance between the two parties.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday rubbished reports that he was trying to engineer defection in Rashtriya Janata Dal to bolster numbers of his government which at present is surviving on support of Independents and Congress Legislators.
If the four major political parties -- the ruling Janata Dal-United, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Janshakti Party -- besides the major left parties are taken into account, then the women candidates in the fray numbered just around 90
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.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday took a dig at Congress in the wake of its poor showing in the Bihar assembly elections saying 'Rahul factor' did not work in the polls.
Former Bihar chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav's wife Rabri Devi lost the elections from Raghopur and Sonepur assembly seats from which she contested.
A visibly happy Nitish Kumar went to the Raj Bhavan to submit his resignation on Wednesday even as counting of votes in all 243 assembly constituencies was underway. The Bihar cabinet on Tuesday decided to recommend the dissolution of the state assembly to Governor Debanand Konwar
Such is the force of his oratory that many Muslims, even those who don't vote for him, have come to believe that Asaduddin Owaisi is the first and only politician who speaks up for Muslims since Independence, observes Jyoti Punwani
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday accused the Congress of using the Sohrabuddin encounter case to promote its vote bank politics ahead of the Bihar assembly polls. BJP chief Nitin Gadkari told journalists that his party was ready to legally and politically fight the case filed against former Gujarat minister Amit Shah. "The BJP will face the legal challenge presented by the fabricated prosecution in a court of law." he said.
Defying a poll boycott call, an estimated 49.84 per cent voters exercised their franchise on Tuesday in 35 assembly constituencies in the fifth phase of Bihar assembly elections amid stray incidents of violence.
PM Modi is scheduled to visit Bihar on August 18 to lay the foundation stone of a four lane road in Bhojpur district and will also address a BJP rally in Saharsa district.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday said it would field candidates in 102 constituencies in upcoming Bihar assembly polls -- the same number as in the last elections -- and declared the names of 87 contestants, including eight women while leaving the rest of the seats to ally Janata Dal-United.
In this COVID-19 phase, the BJP leveraged its pre-eminence again to tip the power scales in its favour and relegate its allies in the National Democratic Alliance to a lesser position. Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
Bahujan Samaj Party on Saturday released its list of 125 candidates with caste names for the upcoming Bihar assembly polls.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday chaired a meeeting of the party's Central Election Committee to finalise candidates for the upcoming Bihar assembly polls.
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