Latest news with #ChiragPaswan
India Gazette
3 days ago
- Politics
- India Gazette
Andhra Minister Nara Lokesh to meet with Union Ministers in Delhi today
New Delhi [India], June 18 (ANI): Andhra Pradesh Cabinet Minister for Information Technology and Education is on a two-day visit to Delhi to meet with various union ministers and discuss issues regarding the state, among other things. According to the state minister's itinerary, today he will be meeting with Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar at 10:30 AM, while at 2 PM he will meet with Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Chirag Paswan, at 4:30 PM with Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, followed by a meeting at 5:30 PM with Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal. Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Andhra minister will be meeting with Union Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya in the morning and later on will be meeting former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair. Earlier on June 16, intending to help students get better coaching for exams, the Andhra Pradesh government announced that over 1 lakh students across over a 1,300 government junior colleges will be provided with free study material and free coaching for the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) and the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). 'Proud to launch a transformative initiative under the Andhra Pradesh Model of Education-- providing free JEE & NEET coaching along with expertly curated study material to 1 lakh+ students across 1,355 govt junior colleges,' Nara Lokesh wrote in a post on X. Underlining the policy ensuring that every child has a Right to Education, Lokesh added, 'Quality education is every child's right, not a privilege. This model gives every student in Andhra Pradesh a fair chance to dream big and achieve bigger.' His post added, 'For the first time in India, a state government is delivering IIT/NEET-level academic support within the public education system -- bridging the gap between rural talent and national aspirations. Students in MPC & BiPC streams will now receive daily coaching, extended learning hours, structured tests, and tracked academic progress -- just like in elite private institutions.' (ANI)
Time of India
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Assembly polls: LJP (RV) gears up for all 243 seats
1 2 Patna: Days after Union minister Chirag Paswan announced his decision to contest the upcoming Bihar assembly elections , his party, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), on Thursday declared it has begun large-scale poll preparations for all 243 seats in the state. The decision was taken during the state working committee meeting chaired by state president Raju Tiwari and attended by the party's Bihar in charge, Arun Bharti, who is also Chirag's brother-in-law. The LJP last made a significant impact in the Feb-March 2005 assembly elections when it won 29 seats after contesting 178. It played the role of "kingmaker" but chose not to support either the RJD-led alliance or the NDA under Nitish, which eventually led to President's Rule. Six months later, the NDA formed the govt following the by-elections. Thursday's meeting, attended by MPs Arun Bharti, Veena Devi, Shambhavi Choudhary, parliamentary board chairman Hulas Pandey and national general secretary Satyanand Sharma, passed eight proposals. What stood out was the party's declaration of preparing for all seats in the 2025 elections. "The party unanimously passes the proposal that, in line with the public statement of its national president Chirag Paswan, it will prepare with full strength and enthusiasm for all 243 assembly seats for the upcoming assembly elections," the resolution said. The party also announced it will hold a 'Bahujan-Bhim Sankalp Samagam' on June 29 at Rajgir in Nalanda, the home district of CM Nitish Kumar. Chirag will address the rally. "The meeting is aimed at strengthening constitutional rights and social justice and increasing political awareness among the deprived classes," the party said. "It will serve as both a platform for organisational expansion and worker empowerment and a strategic move ahead of the upcoming elections," it added. The meeting voiced serious concern over the "rising crimes" against dalits and criticised the state administration. It also expressed alarm over the cancellation of MGNREGA job cards without prior notice, which it said had pushed many dalits, OBCs and deprived communities into a survival crisis. Follow more information on Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad here . Get real-time live updates on rescue operations and check full list of passengers onboard AI 171 .
Time of India
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
After announcing to contest assembly polls, Chirag party says it is preparing for 243 seats
Patna: Days after Union minister Chirag Paswan announced his decision to contest the upcoming Bihar assembly elections , his party, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), on Thursday declared it has begun large-scale poll preparations for all 243 seats in the state. The decision was taken during the state working committee meeting chaired by state president Raju Tiwari and attended by the party's Bihar in charge, Arun Bharti, who is also Chirag's brother-in-law. The LJP last made a significant impact in the Feb-March 2005 assembly elections when it won 29 seats after contesting 178. It played the role of "kingmaker" but chose not to support either the RJD-led alliance or the NDA under Nitish, which eventually led to President's Rule. Six months later, the NDA formed the govt following the by-elections. Thursday's meeting, attended by MPs Arun Bharti, Veena Devi, Shambhavi Choudhary, parliamentary board chairman Hulas Pandey and national general secretary Satyanand Sharma, passed eight proposals. What stood out was the party's declaration of preparing for all seats in the 2025 elections. "The party unanimously passes the proposal that, in line with the public statement of its national president Chirag Paswan, it will prepare with full strength and enthusiasm for all 243 assembly seats for the upcoming assembly elections," the resolution said. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 3BHK Transformation Possible for ₹4.5 Lakh? HomeLane Get Quote Undo The party also announced it will hold a 'Bahujan-Bhim Sankalp Samagam' on June 29 at Rajgir in Nalanda, the home district of CM Nitish Kumar. Chirag will address the rally. "The meeting is aimed at strengthening constitutional rights and social justice and increasing political awareness among the deprived classes," the party said. "It will serve as both a platform for organisational expansion and worker empowerment and a strategic move ahead of the upcoming elections," it added. The meeting voiced serious concern over the "rising crimes" against dalits and criticised the state administration. It also expressed alarm over the cancellation of MGNREGA job cards without prior notice, which it said had pushed many dalits, OBCs and deprived communities into a survival crisis. Follow more information on Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad here . Get real-time live updates on rescue operations and check full list of passengers onboard AI 171 .
Indian Express
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Chirag Paswan may contest from a general seat. Tough task, but it helps to be a star candidate
At a rally in Bihar's Arrah on Sunday, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief and Union Minister Chirag Paswan confirmed his intention to contest the forthcoming Assembly polls. The Dalit leader has also indicated that he wants to contest from an unreserved Assembly seat, which is being seen as a move to expand his and his party's reach beyond the Scheduled Castes. Asked if this also indicated his chief ministerial ambitions, Paswan, who is currently a Union minister, said: 'My contest will only ensure a better strike rate for my party, which would help the NDA.' If he contests from a general seat, it would be a first for Paswan. He has also never contested an Assembly election earlier, having won twice earlier from the Jamui Lok Sabha seat (2014 and 2019), and once from Hajipur (2024). Poll data since 2004, when the Election Commission (EC) began specifying the caste or tribal status of each candidate, shows, though, that while Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates frequently contest from general seats, their chances of victory are small. In Bihar, for example, in the past 20 years since the EC started maintaining the data, SC/ST candidates have won only five times from a general seat, and never in a Lok Sabha poll. Notably, the undivided LJP, which has always fielded a high number of SC/ST candidates from general seats, has never seen any of them win. Overall, since 2004, 5,953 SC/ST candidates have contested from unreserved seats in Lok Sabha elections, with 62 (or just over 1%) of them winning. In state Assembly elections, the number is almost similar, at 20,644 such candidates, and 246 recorded wins (1.19%). Since 2004, the highest number of SC/ST winners in general seats were seen in last year's Lok Sabha elections, at 22 (two of them women) – though, their number has been rising, from 15 in 2004, to eight in 2009, seven in 2014, and 10 in 2019. 2024 also saw the highest proportion of SC and ST candidates in general seats (19.4% of total). In 2019, such candidates accounted for 16.2% of all contestants. The lowest share of these candidates since 2004 was in 2009, at 12.8%. Tribal candidates far outnumbered SCs when it comes to winning from a general seat. Among the 62 overall who have won since 2004 from general seats in Lok Sabha polls, 47 have been STs and 15 SCs. This is despite SC candidates in general seats being more than six times STs (5,063 compared to 890). Among the states, Maharashtra accounts for the highest number of SC/ST candidates contesting from general seats since 2004, at 830, followed by Tamil Nadu at 754, Madhya Pradesh at 342, Andhra Pradesh at 314, and Karnataka at 286. Maharashtra has the most total Lok Sabha seats of these states at 48, while Tamil Nadu has 39, Madhya Pradesh 29, Andhra Pradesh 25, and Karnataka 28. The highest number of SC or ST winners in general seats are from Arunachal at 10, followed by Assam at seven, and Ladakh, Nagaland and West Bengal at five each. No other states have seen more than five such winners. The Northeast is overrepresented here given the low number of seats in the region where most seats are already reserved for STs. At 55, Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara has seen the most number of SC/ST candidates contesting from a general seat, followed by Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur and Maharashtra's Nagpur at 50 each, and Telangana's Khammam and Nizamabad at 45 each. If only 62 SC/ST candidates have won from general seats since 2004, just 65 more have placed second and 177 third. The vast majority – 5,649 of 5,953 – came in fourth or lower. Just 164 SC/ST candidates have secured more than 10% votes when contesting from general seats, and only 147 others have been able to save their deposits by winning at least one-sixth of the total votes. Their presence in the race on most occasions did not make a difference, with just 200 SC/ST candidates standing in general seats since 2004 securing more votes than the margin of the winner, and presumably influencing the result. Most of the SC/ST candidates contesting from general seats in Lok Sabha elections are Independents, comprising 3,284 of the total 5,953 since 2004. Of them, only three have won – all from Ladakh. In comparison, the two biggest parties nationally, the BJP and Congress, account for just 54 and 52 such candidates, respectively. Of the BJP's 54, nearly half or 28, won from general seats, with the Congress tally at 15. The Mayawati-led BSP, not surprisingly, far outstrips other parties, with 600 such candidates fielded in general seats. The Dalit-oriented party, though based in Uttar Pradesh, contests Lok Sabha polls across the country. The most notable SC/ST winners from general seats since 2004 include Union ministers Kiren Rijiju and Sarbananda Sonowal, both from the Northeast. Rijiju, a member of the Nyishi tribe, has won the Arunachal West Lok Sabha seat four of the last five times, while Sonowal, also a tribal leader and former Assam CM, has won his seat thrice from Lakhimpur and Dibrugarh. BJP MP and tribal leader Mansukhbhai Vasava from Gujarat's Bharuch shares the record with Rijiju on ST candidates who have won from general seats the most times, at four. Like Sonowal, Arunachal BJP president and ST leader Tapir Gao won from Arunachal East and Congress Dalit Punjab leader Sher Singh Ghubaya won from Firozpur thrice each. Most recently, in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Samajwadi Party Dalit leader Awadesh Prasad defeated the BJP in Faizabad, a general seat that is home to Ayodhya's Ram Temple. In the Assembly elections held since 2004 (counting the 2025 Delhi Assembly polls), 20,644 SC/ST candidates have contested from general seats, or 11% of total, lower than their proportion in the Lok Sabha polls. Like the Lok Sabha polls, SC candidates outnumber STs in such seats by more than five times (17,330 SCs to 3,314 STs). And like the Lok Sabha polls, they figure far behind among winners – of the 246 such winners till date, 64 have been SCs and 182 STs. The year 2023, when there were nine Assembly elections, saw the highest number of such candidates at 1,792. It is followed by the years 2014 and 2024 (1,666 and 1,622, respectively), when there were Lok Sabha polls as well as eight state elections each. Like in the case of Lok Sabha elections, Maharashtra has seen the most number of SC/ST candidates contesting from general seats, at 3,058. UP, with the largest Assembly in the country, comes second at 1,811, followed by Tamil Nadu at 1,687, Andhra Pradesh (which included Telangana until 2014) at 1,675, and Karnataka at 1,410. However, in terms of winners, none of these states count among the top. Assam has seen the most number of SC/ST candidates emerge victorious from general seats at 30, followed by Rajasthan at 26, West Bengal at 23, Sikkim at 22, and J&K at 20 since 2004. At 121 candidates, a large concentration of such winners is, hence, in Northeastern and other hill states. Apart from the 246 winning SC/ST candidates from general seats, just 297 placed second and 858 placed third. The remaining 19,243 candidates (93% of total) finished fourth or lower. Only 822 candidates even secured a vote share greater than 10%, with only 622 others managing to save their deposits. As far as the impact on the outcome goes, there have been 1,031 SC/ST candidates in general seats who secured more votes than the winners' margins. Of these, 732 were SCs and 299 were STs. Like at the Lok Sabha level, in Assembly polls too, Independents comprise the biggest chunk (nearly half, at 9,789) of the SC/ST candidates who have contested from general seats since 2004. The BSP again tops among parties, with 3,210 such candidates, with the BJP (295) and Congress (222) trailing far behind. In fact, at 239 SC/ST candidates in general seats since 2004, the LJP, including Paswan's LJP (RV) now, outranks Congress, despite being a Bihar-based party. The other parties to have fielded more than 100 such candidates in the last two decades include the Republican Party of India (Athawale) – also a Dalit-focused party like the LJP – at 212; the Gondwana Gantantra Party at 206; the SP at 149; the CPI(ML)(L) at 133; the CPI(M) at 109; and the Aam Aadmi Party at 100. However, the winners' list of such candidates is dominated by national parties. The BJP again has the most SC/ST winners in general seats at 59, followed by the Congress at 55, Independents at 18, the Trinamool Congress and CPI(M) at 10 each, the Biju Janata Dal at nine, the National Conference at eight, and the BSP at six. Among the most prominent such winners has been Babulal Marandi, Jharkhand's first CM and one of the BJP's tallest tribal leaders, who won the unreserved Dharwar Assembly seat in 2019 and 2024. Two-time Sikkim CM Prem Singh Tamang, an ST leader of NDA member Sikkim Krantikari Morcha, won unreserved seats in 2004, 2009, and 2014. Ramesh Jarkiholi, another tribal leader and former Karnataka minister, won the unreserved Gokak seat for the Congress in 2018 and the BJP in 2023. Praniti Shinde, daughter of former Union minister Sushilkumar Shinde, won Maharashtra's Solapur City Central seat in 2009 and 2014 as an SC candidate. Nisith Pramanik, an SC leader and former Union minister, won the unreserved Dinhata seat in West Bengal in 2021 before becoming an MP. With four victories from the unreserved Gossaigaon seat in Assam (2006 to 2021), Bodoland Peoples' Front leader Majendra Narzary holds the record for SC/ST candidates in Assembly elections. Meghalaya's Sanbor Shullai matches him, having won unreserved seats twice with the NCP, in 2008 and 2013, and twice with the BJP, in 2018 and 2023.
NDTV
10-06-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
Caste Survey? Check. Phase 1 Of BJP-Led Alliance's Bihar Poll Prep Done
New Delhi: The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance has completed groundwork for distribution of tickets for the Bihar Assembly election expected to be held later this year, sources told NDTV Tuesday. As part of that ground work a survey of caste and power equations has been conducted in each constituency, to pinpoint the caste or community from which to draw candidates who will be fielded by the ruling alliance, which is fronted by the BJP and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar 's JDU. Care will be taken to balance caste equations in each seat, sources said, and no ally will be allowed to field candidates without considering these dynamics. Caste and caste equations are a critical factor in the Bihar electoral landscape, a factor underlined by the results of the statewide survey in November 2023 that said over 60 per cent of the state's population of nearly 14 crore are from Extremely Backward and Backward Classes. The survey also said the Yadav community - the group to which RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav belongs - is the largest sub-group, accounting for 14.27 per cent of all OBC categories. There is also an agreement to allow sitting MLAs the chance to defend their seat, which appears to contradict the BJP's practice of wholesale pre-election changes to counter anti-incumbency. However, some MLAs be changed based on their performance these past five years. A few more rounds of talks - on seat-sharing - will take place in Bihar before it shifts to Delhi, where the BJP's senior leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will name candidates. The Seat-Sharing Formula Last week sources told NDTV the formula for seat allocation will be similar (but not identical) to the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Then the state's 40 seats were divided as follows - 17 for the BJP, 16 for the JDU, five for Chirag Paswan's LJP, and one each for Jitan Manjhi's HAM and the RLM. This time, however, the allocation may tilt in favour of the JDU. Sources said Nitish Kumar's party might contest 102-103 seats and the BJP 101-102. The remaining - 38-40 seats - will be divided between the three smaller parties. Of this the LJP will likely get the lion's share - between 25 and 28 - because it has five MPs. The Chirag Paswan Angle Chirag Paswan - who many feel was used by the BJP in the 2020 election to cut votes from Nitish Kumar's JDU - has been talking up his party's chances in this election. On Sunday he addressed a rally in Patna and said his party would contest all 243 seats. He also referred to his father - the late former Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who died in October 2020 - and said that having lost him, the people of Bihar are his only family. However, Mr Paswan was also quick to underline his support for the BJP-led alliance, stressing that his plans to contest all seats was intended to "make the NDA stronger". READ | "Yes, Will Contest From Bihar," Says Chirag Paswan. Then Adds Twist Mr Paswan contested against Nitish Kumar in the 2020 election. This cut down the JDU boss' dominant position in the alliance and allowed the BJP to play big brother, a fact that played its part in an angry Nitish Kumar dumping the saffron party and re-aligning with the RJD in 2022. However, in January 2024 Nitish Kumar - who formed the INDIA opposition bloc to unite parties opposed to the BJP in the two years away, only to find himself being sidelined in his quest (denied publicly) to become a prime ministerial candidate - re-re-aligned himself with the BJP. The BJP's intention to give Nitish Kumar a marginal edge in terms of seats allocated might be a tactic to pacify the JDU leader ahead of this election given Chirag Paswan's presence. Assurances that Nitish will be the chief ministerial candidate of the NDA have also been given. Congress-RJD Rift? Meanwhile, across the divide it appears all is not well in the opposition Mahagathbandan camp, which includes the Tejashwi Yadav-led RJD, the Congress, and Left parties. The Congress has, so far, not endorsed Mr Yadav as the alliance leader and chief ministerial candidate, sparking rumours the national party, which has struggled for traction in recent Bihar polls, having won 27 in 2015 and only 19 in the last election, will try to go solo once again. The RJD, though, has made its position clear - Tejashwi Yadav is the face of the opposition.
