In both the states where the Bharatiya Janata Party came second is trying to turn the tables on the Congress to form the government.
Terming West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's call for a Federal Front as a "ploy" to increase her bargaining power with Congress and BJP before the 2014 polls, the Left parties feel it cannot be successful without a common minimum programme.
Congress will be batting for itself and not for its allies and the focus would be on key leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, in an advertisement campaign to be launched by the party soon for Lok Sabha polls. Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be the two other stars in the ad blitzkrieg.
The reverses for the BJP in the Hindi heartland threw wide open the 2019 Lok Sabha elections which until a few months ago appeared to be in the grip of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party.
Aam Aadmi Party chief spokesperson Yogendra Yadav tells Somesh Jha how Delhi has moved beyond Shahi Imam-type politics. Yadav also takes a dig at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, and says the AAP had formulated its policies on the streets, unlike the Bharatiya Janata Party.
'Except for the Akali Dal and Shiv Sena, the BJP has not found any permanent friends.' 'This is because most parties are genuinely concerned about what Hindutva politics does to Indian society,' argues Aakar Patel.
Born in Rangoon (now Yangon, Myanmar) Rupani, 61, joined an RSS shakha as a schoolboy, before graduating to the BJP via the Sangh's students wing -- the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
New Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah on Thursday warned party MPs against any disconnect with voters and asked them to remain connected ahead of the forthcoming assembly elections in four states and bypolls in some other states.
In the latest medical bulletin issued by AIIMS, the hospital said that he 'continues to respond well to treatment'.
Distancing herself from the United National Progressive Alliance floated by non-Congress and non-BJP parties a few months ago, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief Jayalalithaa on Thursday said there was "no such thing called the Third Front".
'In the world she was being described as a dictator and she wanted to prove she wasn't,' says Mohan Dharia, the former minister who she jailed during the Emergency.
The finance ministry has advocated an increase in auto and cooking fuel prices only after the Budget is tabled in Parliament on February 26 in an effort to avert possible united protests from the United Progressive Alliance's non-Congress allies and opposition parties ahead of a busy opening week of Parliament.
Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley feels the JD-U and SP, the prime movers behind the idea of Third Front, are 'potential losers' in their areas of influence, and are no match to Narendra Modi-led NDA.
Banerjee said the two leaders discussed the current political scenario and strategies to oust the BJP in assembly and Lok Sabha elections at the 20-minute meeting at Gandhi's residence.
The results are a ringing endorsement of Modi's popularity, his government's achievements in the last five years and his campaign, which centred around national security, nationalism and Hindutva.
Apart from Sangma, 11 other cabinet ministers were also sworn in by the governor.
The newly-formulated Third Front left its imprint in Parliament on the opening day of the reconvened winter session when it surprised the ruling coalition by derailing the Anti-Communal Violence Bill
Probodh Panda and Atul Kumar Anjaan are among 39 candidates declared by the Communist Party of India for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as the party said that it would fight on 60 seats in 24 states.
The opposition has requested President Kalam not to attend a ceremony in Centra Hall of Paliament where the portrait will be unveiled.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday said the Janata Dal-United would welcome rebel Rashtriya Janata Dal members of Legislative Assembly into its fold and rejected allegations that the assembly Speaker worked at his behest by hurriedly giving recognition to the breakaway faction.
This is going to be the first such exercise of its kind in the 27 years that Congress has been out of power in the state, which it had earlier ruled for four long decades.
'Don't try to impose anything on us.'
Reacting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent comment -- that he was not ruling out a future alliance with former partner Trinamool Congress -- party Member of Parliament Derek O'Brien on Sunday said they would prefer to go it alone in the next Lok Sabha polls as the people of the state were firmly behind them.
With less than a month to go for the assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress have exuded confidence of winning the elections.
'If Narendra Modi and Amit Shah will campaign here, the BJP's defeat will be bigger.'
The party's gamble to go in for early elections paid rich dividends.
Rating agency Moody's on Tuesday cautioned that a third front government created by regional parties could lead to capital flight and delay economic recovery.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, Janata Dal-United's Sharad Yadav, Samajwadi Party's Ramgopal Yadav and Aam Aadmi Party's Arvind Kejriwal will meet at Sharad Pawar's residence on Wednesday.
The CPI-M is upbeat in its quest to form a Third Front and struck a pre-poll alliance with the BJD in Orissa within a day after the ruling state party snapped ties with longtime ally BJP.
Sharad Yadav says that reports about disquiet among the factions are 'sponsored'.
'The path of militant Hindutva that the BJP's national leadership chose as its main electoral plank literally dug the grave for the party in Kerala,' says M K Bhadrakumar.
With her various overtures and right noises at the right time, Mamata is once again trying to reshape her image from being a regional leader to one with national appeal and acceptability. After all, the charge of building a Federal Front may also bring to the fore Mamata's chances to become prime minister in 2019.
After the break over the nuclear deal, the CPI (M) has ruled out supporting the Congress in forming the government at the Centre.
The Congress chief addressed a large gathering of party workers at Lalganj in Rae Bareli on the concluding day of her two-day thanksgiving visit to her Lok Sabha constituency.
Amid efforts to form a Third Front, several regional parties including the Left, the Janata Dal-United, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Bharatiya Janata Dal and United Progressive Alliance ally Nationalist Congress Party on Wednesday came together at a convention in New Delhi with their leaders pitching for unity among them to defeat the "threat" from fascist and communal forces.
Efforts like the United National Progressive Alliance are a 'result of some honest efforts but the real third force will come into being only in the post-poll scenario', he said while disagreeing that a third force was already in place. The 75-year old veteran socialist claimed his relationship with Congress leadership was 'never strained' though he was pained by the fact that none in the Congress camp tried to 'acknowledge' his efforts to keep away BJP.
Coming as it does only months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Chennai meet could provide the launch pad for a national alternative to the BJP-NDA, and MK Stalin may be given the credit for getting it going, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Bharatiya Janata Party parliamentary party will meet on May 20 to formally elect Narendra Modi as its leader, a formality before his anointment as prime minister.
Rahul asserted that Sheila Dikshit was "highly experienced" to change UP's face.
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