Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras on Saturday said he will contest the next Lok Sabha polls from Hajipur, rebuffing his nephew Chirag Paswan who has staked claim on late father Ram Vilas Paswan's constituency.
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.
In the past five years, UP's Opposition remained passive and defensive against the BJP, a trend that does not augur well for the impending battle.
'This decision to go with the BJP is Kumaraswamy's individual decision and not a party decision.'
The performance of Janata Dal-United has down compared its performance in the 2015 elections and the ruling party could not win even half of the number of seats it contested in this election.
High voter turnout was recorded in most of the seven assembly constituencies in six states where by-elections were held on Tuesday.
'Rahul Gandhi is the face of the INDIA alliance. If he contests against a BJP candidate and defeats her/him, it will send a strong message.'
Why did Modi single out the Congress and its leaders for the most pugnacious verbal assault while sparing other regional adversaries? If he is trying to get some parties to break the Opposition ranks, it means that the BJP's present bravado is for effect. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times, begins a new column for Rediff.com.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday said that the defeat of Janata Dal-United in Maharajganj bypoll has no bearing on the National Democratic Alliance.
A day after his landslide victory in the Bihar assembly polls, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was on Thursday elected as the leader of the National Democratic Alliance legislature party in the 15th Bihar assembly.
The work we have done in the south and the northeast over the last 10 years under Prime Minister Modi's leadership, we have started getting results of the same, he said.
Is the unusually and unbearably scorching Sun and the general laxity, bordering on laziness, among voters, responsible, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
As the exit polls were sharply split on who would get to rule Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav on Saturday said their grand Mahagatbadhan alliance would win the Bihar Assembly polls with 190 seats.
The Trinamool Congress registered a decisive victory in West Bengal on Sunday, contrary to results of most exit polls which predicted a tight race between the BJP and the TMC with an edge to the Mamata Banerjee-led party.
Call it the art of staying rooted yet bending with prevailing political winds. With Telangana going to the polls in December, and assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Andhra and Odisha scheduled next year, what factors have influenced parties' recent moves?
Erica and Woods have been in an ongoing legal battle for several months. In October 2022, she filed a lawsuit against a trust set up for his residence. Erica said that she had a verbal agreement to live at the estate for five years but she was kicked and locked out of the home.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said during the reply to the debate on no-confidence motion on Thursday that when the government said that it would make India the third largest economy in the next five years, a responsible opposition would have asked questions how it would do so, but the fact is he had to teach this to them.
'Every Indian who is concerned about the unity, integrity and the map of India should be worried about this growing divide.'
Constituencies that are going to the polls in the first phase, slated for April 19, have just 19 days for campaigning. Contrast that with those going to polls in the 7th phase, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
BJP-led NDA has said it will strongly demand that the Telangana Bill be brought in the Winter Session of Parliament and press for debates on issues like internal security, violence against women and subversion of constitutional bodies like JPC on 2G scam.
On one hand, South Indian states have been complaining about denial of a proportionate portion of the sharable funds from the Centre, based on population. On the other hand, they stand to lose Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha seats that again are based on population, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Aiming to end the 25-year rule of Lalu-Nitish combine in Bihar, the National Democratic Alliance will formally launch on Thursday its campaign for the crucial assembly polls scheduled later this year with BJP president Amit Shah set to flag off 160 'parivartan raths' from Patna.
In future if the party wins, people would say 'INDIA has won,' but if the party loses, then people would say 'INDIA has lost'
What the INDIA alliance needs is neither a counter to Modi's tall personality and undiminished charisma nor a counter-narrative to his Hindutva agenda, now centred on the Ayodhya temple consecration on January 22, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
Rajasthan Congress leaders Jyoti Mirdha and Sawai Singh Chaudhary switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Jaipur on Monday ahead of assembly elections due later this year.
Singh, accompanied by Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande, also carried out a comprehensive review of India's military preparedness along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh and lauded the troops for guarding the border with "unwavering commitment and unparalleled courage."
The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year's general election.
This is also the first time that Naidu has been arrested on corruption charges in his political career spanning over 40 years.
Addressing a press conference, Paswan said he was happy that the BJP had emerged "much bigger and stronger" in Bihar, and ruled out any possibility of a truck with the opposition Grand Alliance, comprising RJD, Congress and three Left parties, citing "ideological differences".
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.
Will the perceived Narendra Modi wave help the National Democratic Alliance re-enact the 1998 spectacular success in Tamil Nadu when it bagged 30 seats in alliance with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, is the million dollar question on the minds of the Bharatiya Janata Party workers as the party heads into the April 24 Lok Sabha polls armed with a rainbow combine excluding the two Dravidian majors.
This was a difficult election to win, but the Modi card, the caste divide and the division in the Opposition vote bank helped overcome many challenges.
Chandrababu Naidu is very upbeat after pulling off a victory in the Seema-Andhra region. All set to take over as the first chief minister of the bifurcated Andhra Pradesh, he told reporters that his victory showed that people had voted for development and against corruption.
Will Vijay will go the most successful MGR/Jayalalithaa way, or that of Vijayakanth, Seeman or Kamalahaasan, or will he end up as another Rajinikanth who cries wolf at the last minute and quits the scene even before it all had really begun, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
The National Democratic Alliance's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu swept the floor of a Shiva temple in her locality in Rairangpur, in this nondescript, tribal-dominated town in Odisha's Mayurbhanj district at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, ahead of her journey to Delhi.
Shankersinh Vaghela claimed Patel's victory in the Rajya Sabha polls came through a 'well thought-out conspiracy'.
There may be those who could want to go slow, citing the large pendency of follow-up action and court cases that they would have to process and/or proceed with, before raiding more politicians, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
With the assembly polls only two years away, in 2026, any demoralising defeat in 2024, would challenge not only the party's continued relevance but also EPS's leadership, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
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