PolitMaster.com is a comprehensive online platform providing insightful coverage of the political arena: International Relations, Domestic Policies, Economic Developments, Electoral Processes, and Legislative Updates. With expert analysis, live updates, and in-depth features, we bring you closer to the heart of politics. Exclusive interviews, up-to-date photos, and video content, alongside breaking news, keep you informed around the clock. Stay engaged with the world of politics 24/7.
Two-time BJP MP Om Birla is facing a tough contest in his Kota Lok Sabha seat, which votes on April 26. One reason is his “absence” from his constituency during his last term, in which he served as the Lok Sabha Speaker. The second is his challenger, the Congress’s Prahlad Gunjal, a former BJP leader and Vasundhara Raje loyalist.
Come to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state, which the BJP swept in the last two Lok Sabha elections, winning 26 out of 26 seats, and in which a BJP government has ruled uninterrupted since 1998, to get a glimpse of what total dominance looks like, even and especially when it is fraying at the edges. Winning all 26 seats again is not the BJP’s stated goal this time — the party is striking a bigger and bolder posture in its Gujarat showcase. It says it will win every seat here — the state goes to polls in Phase 3 on May 7 — by a margin of 5 lakh votes.
The BJP on Monday won its first seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections unopposed as Congress Surat candidate Nilesh Kumbhani was disqualified owing to alleged discrepancies in his nomination papers, while eight other nominees withdrew from the fray. It is rare for a Lok Sabha seat to be won unopposed, and the first such win for the BJP.
The lone Muslim MP of the NDA in the outgoing Lok Sabha, Choudhary Mehboob Ali Kaiser left the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) a few days ago to join the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) after being denied the ticket from Khagaria, which he has represented since 2014. He speaks to The Indian Express on his decision to defect and the “sharpened” religious binary in the NDA regime, and claims Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charisma is “waning”. Excerpts:
On Friday evening, soon after holding an election meeting in Malur for the Janata Dal (Secular) candidate in Kolar – one of the three Lok Sabha seats that his party is contesting in Karnataka in an alliance with the BJP – party supremo and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, 91, headed to the house of BJP dissident Hoodi Vijay Kumar to seek his support.
A row erupted Friday when a video went viral purportedly showing Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) leader Arvind Rajbhar, the son of party chief and UP minister Om Prakash Rajbhar, sitting with folded hands at a BJP workers’ meeting and then being asked to bow down before them by Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak.
For many popular Odia film stars who have transitioned to politics, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) that has been the ruling party in the state for two decades used to be the first choice, with many also getting elected to the state Assembly or Parliament. But ahead of the simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in Odisha, almost all of them have switched to the BJP, with Kendrapara MP Anubhav Mohanty the latest to jump ship on Monday.
Vikram Ahake, Congress leader and Madhya Pradesh’s first tribal mayor from Chhindwara, quit the party and joined the BJP on Monday. A key loyalist of senior Congress leader Kamal Nath, Ahake’s name was suggested for the mayoral post by Nath in 2022 despite opposition from a section of the Chhindwara party unit.