The decision taken about Kharge at the INDIA bloc meeting earlier this month had shocked the JD-U, which believed that its president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar would be named as the convenor without being saddled with any chairperson, its leaders had then said.
'We want the prime minister to express public regrets over his attitude,' BJP Parliamentary Party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said.
Leader of the opposition in the assembly, Vijay Kumar Sinha of the Bharatiya Janaat Party, sat next to Choudhary and he was seen exchanging pleasantries with Kumar.
National Democratic Alliance allies on Monday put up a united front amid vocal demands being made by some parties on their share of seats in Bihar polls but the crucial issue of seat-sharing was not discussed at their maiden joint meeting chaired by Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday levelled fresh allegations of corruption against the Aam Aadmi Party, saying a former Delhi Jal Board chief engineer had 'transferred' Rs 2 crore of bribe money to his colleagues in the department and the ruling party in Delhi as election funds.
The NDA leadership is set to meet on Wednesday to discuss a Parliament floor strategy for what is expected to be a difficult winter session for the government.
Opposition National Democratic Alliance leaders on Monday urged Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee not to allow the government conduct official business in Parliament amid din, barring compelling circumstances.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance on Saturday demanded to know how the Joint Parliamentary Committee's draft report on 2G spectrum allocation issue had exonerated Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram without examining them and appealed to all members of the committee to reject the document.
"I am fighting a big battle to save my country from the corrupt. That is why they are behind bars today and not getting bail even from the Supreme Court," Modi said.
The lack of clarity on who is next in line, when the time comes, as indeed it will one day some day, reflects poorly on the management of the world's largest political party. It scarcely need be said that a squabble between the contenders, Shah and Yogi, is exactly what the doctor ordered for the Opposition, notes Krishna Prasad.
The BJP's strategy seem to be to wean away allies from the Congress, in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, and maybe later in UP, Bihar and elsewhere, though in slow doses, but without wooing them into a new alliance. The idea seems to be only to weaken the INDIA bloc from within -- and leaving it at that, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Is the Agniveer scheme or their post-retirement re-employment in paramilitary forces or in the state governments the BJP's answer to the crying need on the job front?' 'Or, even Finance Minister Sitharaman's one-year internship scheme in the public and private sector, is it a permanent solution, either?', asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Party president Omar Abdullah said the decision to withdraw support was taken to protect the identity of the party in Jammu and Kashmir.
Chirag Paswan cryptically added that he was not ruling out the possibility of siding with the RJD.
Malik said Congress leaders requested that the meeting be postponed to Wednesday.
The bickering between allies All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Bharatiya Janata Party in Tamil Nadu over late Dravidian stalwart C N Annadurai peaked on Monday with the regional party snapping ties with the saffron organisation, saying it cannot tolerate any affront to the late chief minister and its other leaders.
The former Congress president also tagged a post by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in which he talked about eliminating EVMs.
There is a view that heavyweight portfolios like home, finance, defence and external affairs besides education and culture, two ministries with strong ideological hues, will be kept by the BJP, while its allies can get anywhere between five to eight cabinet berths.
Naidu is a fitting candidate for the office of vice president, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday appeared all set to make his second political volte face in less than three years, with a highly-placed source close to Kumar saying that the Janata Dal-United president is likely to tender his resignation by Sunday morning.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday said that the Ayodhya issue was very much on the party's agenda and that the National Democratic Alliance coalition was a religion, not a compulsion, for the party for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.
"I will personally on Friday, May 31 at 10 am will come before the SIT and will cooperate with the investigation and will respond to it (charges). I have faith in court and I am confident I will come out of false cases through court," Pajwal said in a video statement aired on Kannada TV channel Asianet Suvarna News.
The BJP had registered a one-sided victory on all the 17 SC-reserved seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. But in 2019, out of these 17 seats, it lost Nagina and Lalganj seats to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
The original suggestion was to call it 'Indian National Democratic Inclusive Alliance', but the word 'democratic' was replaced with 'developmental' after Kumar and Yechury raised some objections saying it sounded too similar to the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), sources said.
Representatives of BJP, Shiv Sena and Swatantra Bharat Paksh kept away in protest against Singh's continuance as its chairman despite being asked to step down. "We stayed away as it was National Democratic Alliance's directive," said Shiv Sena representative in PAC, Anandrao Adsul.
"There are double standards with which the House is being run. There is a disregard of the Opposition," Malhotra said.
The series of meetings are being seen as an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party to reach out to allies who have either been criticising or expressing their dissent with the party and also to strengthen the National Democratic Alliance ahead of the Lok Sabha polls next year.
Campaigning ended on Wednesday evening for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19 with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) making a last-gasp effort to woo voters.
'The biggest festival of democracy is here! EC has announced the 2024 Lok Sabha election dates. We, the BJP-NDA, are fully prepared for elections'
Names of eight-term MLA from Gaya town Prem Kumar and that of Kameshwar Choupal, a Dalit MLC who had laid the foundation stone for the temple at Ayodhya in the 1990s, are also doing the rounds for the post in the political circles.
Strong reservations from key ally Janata Dal-United over pitting a candidate against United Progressive Alliance nominee Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday forced the National Democratic Alliance to defer its decision on the Presidential election.
After a meeting at BJP leader LK Advani's residence, from which the BJP's oldest ideological ally the Shiv Sena kept away, NDA convenor Sharad Yadav merely said more discussions were needed to arrive at a right decision
There is an impression within the Tamil Nadu BJP -- although no one is airing it -- that over-exposure for Narendra Modi over the past months may work against party candidates, as they have triggered a near-continuous social media debate on his achievements and failures, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The National Democratic Alliance on Tuesday evening agreed to end the boycott of parliamentary committees.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday called for a "main front" of all non-BJP parties to take on the ruling alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and asserted that the decision on its leadership can be taken later.
He made the demand during a joint press conference with Arvind Kejriwal and Bhagwant Mann who called on him in Hyderabad to discuss the issue of the Centre's ordinance.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said he wants the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance to win 400 seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls to ensure the Congress does not bring back Article 370 in Kashmir and put a 'Babri lock' on the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
"I want to send you my good wishes that you prepare so much that you get a chance to bring a no-confidence again in 2023," he had said while replying in Lok Sabha to the no-confidence motion in 2019, ahead of the general elections.
Indications are that the DMK combine will win more seats than the AIADMK and BJP, but is facing a tough fight in about half a dozen from the rest, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy of the electoral contest in Tamil Nadu.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
