Hyderabad, Dec 4: The ruling TRS in Telangana on Friday emerged as the single largest party in the 150-ward Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) election, winning 55 wards.

While the election was held for 150 wards, the results of 149 were announced as counting of votes had to be stopped in a ward as per a High Court order.

BJP bagged 48 wards and the AIMIM of Asaduddin Owaisi secured 44.

Congress could win only two wards.

Counting had to be stopped in Neredmet ward as marks other than the standard Swastik symbol (crossed arrow mark) were in majority.

The Telangana High Court on Friday suspended a circular issued by the State Election Commission (SEC), which allows counting of votes with “distinguish marks” other than the standard Swastik symbol (crossed arrow mark) for the GHMC polls held on December 1.

Hearing a House Motion, Justice Abhishek Reddy, while suspending the SEC’s circular, said the ballots which have “distinguish marks” should be kept separately and if they are detrimental to the poll results, the outcome should not be announced.

Though the ruling TRS emerged as the single largest party, the mayoral election depends on the votes that include co-option members such as MLAs, MLCs and MPs belonging to the GHMC area, besides 150 elected members.

The coming GHMC elections will set the tone for general assembly elections in Telangana.

HYDERABAD: In an open admission that the BJP stood for saffronisation, MP and BJP Yuva Morcha president Tejasvi Surya on Tuesday announced that in South India it will begin from Hyderabad and will spread to the other States, while addressing students at the Osmania University (OU).

“We will win GHMC polls and then the Assembly polls. We will win Tamil Nadu elections and also wrest Kerala. Entire South Indian will be saffronised,” he said. 

“KCR has established a family rule in the State, and in doing so, forget about fulfilling promises made to the people that he would develop the State capital. KCR’s Bangaru Telangana was meant for enhancing the wealth of his family even as youth languished without jobs,” he added.

The Yuva Morcha leader’s visit to OU created tension with the NCC gate being closed with barricades and barbed wires. When his vehicle was stopped, he got down from it and walked through the barbed wire barricade as the crowd that followed him rent the air with slogans of Jai Sri Ram. After breaking the barricades, the Bengaluru MP marched till Arts College, where he paid homage to Telangana martyrs.

PATNA: A day after being unanimously elected leader of the Bihar NDA, JD(U) president Nitish Kumar will on Monday be sworn-in as the state’s chief minister for his seventh term. The swearing-in ceremony will begin at 4.30 pm.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President Jagat Prakash Nadda will attend the oath-taking ceremony.

Earlier on Sunday, Nitish staked his claim to form the new government after handing the letter of support of 126 lawmakers to Governor Phagu Chauhan. The NDA meeting was held in the presence of BJP’s central observer and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

Addressing the media later, Nitish said: “I did not want to be the CM, but only after the request and instructions of the leaders of the BJP, I accepted the post,” he said. Within the BJP, Katihar MLA Tar Kishor Prasad was elected its legislature party leader, which suggested he could be made the deputy chief minister.

Perhaps to acknowledge the role of women as silent voters in the NDA victory, the BJP elected Bettiah MLA Renu Devi as deputy leader of the legislature party. Team Nitish could have 15 representatives from the BJP, 12 JD(U) and two each from the Hindustani Awam Morcha and the Vikassheel Insaan Party.

This is the seventh time when Nitish Kumar will take an oath to become the Chief Minister of Bihar. He had served as the Chief Minister of the state for little over seven days in March 2000, after which he was elected in 2005 when he served a full term.He was re-elected to power in November 2010, after which he served for four years before resigning, and had again taken oath as Chief Minister in February 2015.

He was voted to power in 2015 Assembly election as part of the ‘Mahagathbandhan’. However, after corruption allegations were levelled against his deputy Tejashwi Yadav in 2015, Nitish resigned only to be sworn in as Chief Minister merely 12 hours later joining hands with the BJP to form a government in the state.

Vijayvargiya asserted that BJP’s victory in West Bengal will be “much bigger” as it will “storm to power with a two-thirds majority”.

KOLKATA: After clinching the Bihar assembly polls, West Bengal will be the “prime focus” for BJP where it has set a target of winning more than 200 out of the total 294 seats in the state elections due in April-May 2021, party national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya said on Wednesday.

The NDA has won 125 seats in the 243-member Bihar assembly, results of which were declared on Tuesday.

The BJP with its score of 74 seats has emerged as the party to have won the second highest number of seats after Lalu Prasad’s RJD.

The saffron party’s tally is much higher than that of its ally – the JD(U) which won 43 seats.

It will now shift its focus to politically crucial West Bengal, which sends 42 MPs to the Lok Sabha – two more than Bihar, Vijayvargiya, who is also BJP’s in-charge of Bengal, said.

The BJP, which has made deep inroads in West Bengal by winning 18 of its 42 Lok Sabha seat – four less than ruling TMC in the 2019 general election, was waiting for the Bihar election results before mounting its “final assault” on the Mamata Banerjee government, party sources said.

Vijayvargiya is of the opinion that not just Bihar assembly poll results, the saffron party’s victory in several by-polls across the country show that not only has the faith of the people in it increased but also in the policies of the BJP government at the Centre.

“A victory always increases the morale of the party workers. BJP’s win in Bihar and the by-polls will act as a morale booster for its workers in the state. West Bengal will now be our prime focus state.”

“The ground in Bengal is well prepared for a change and we have to ensure that the anger against the TMC government is channelised. We will use all our energy to free the people of the state from the misrule of TMC,” he said.

Vijayvargiya asserted that BJP’s victory in West Bengal will be “much bigger” as it will “storm to power with a two-thirds majority”.

“If you analyse the Bihar and by-poll results you will see that BJP’s strike rate is very good. In Bengal we are fighting alone, so we are confident of crossing the target of 200 plus seats in the state,” he said.

Union Home Minister and top BJP leader Amit Shah during his visit to the state last week had said that West Bengal is the “prime focus state” for the party and it will “fight and win it with a massive mandate”. BJP state chief Dilip Ghosh had echoed him and said “After Bihar it will be West Bengal for the BJP.”

“The saffron wave witnessed in neighbouring Bihar will sweep away the TMC in West Bengal too. The difference between the elections in the two states is that we were in power in Bihar for nearly 15 years, but in West Bengal we are a challenger,” Ghosh said.

A section of the state BJP leaders, however, underlined that the Bihar election results will have little impact on polls in West Bengal, other than seats along the border.

But it will act as a “morale booster” for party workers in Bengal.

Several state BJP leaders said the party will take a cue from the Bihar poll results and “re-strategise” its campaign issues for the West Bengal elections.

To corner TMC, the BJP has been so far stressing on its alleged misrule, law and order issues, violence, corruption and the state administration’s handling of the COVID-19 situation in West Bengal.

“The Bihar election results have shown that issues like unemployment and migrant labour crisis are crucial in several seats. So we need to stress upon these problems as well.”

“As Bihar was the first state to hold assembly poll after the COVID-19 outbreak, there are a few things all of us need to learn from it,” a senior West Bengal BJP leader said.

Although BJP has the advantage of being an “untested challenger” in West Bengal where it has never been in power, the party is well aware that it will be up against Mamata Banerjee, who has the reputation of being a tough fighter, party sources said.

“If RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav can put up such a fight (in Bihar), it is anyone’s guess the kind of contest we will face in West Bengal,” another state BJP leader said.

As per the parliamentary poll results, the saffron camp had bagged 40.5 per cent votes and was ahead in more than 125 assembly seats in the state.

The central BJP leadership has asked the state leaders to fan out to the districts and organise agitations and mass mobilisations on issues the people are concerned about, before the Congress and Left Front capitalises on those problems, sources in the saffron party said.

“People will see several agitations in different assembly segments over local issues from November-December onwards,” a BJP leader said adding the party is also working to plug the gaps in its organisational strength in some districts.

The Trinamool Congress mocked the saffron party’s target of winning more than 200 seats in the state.

“As far as coming to power in West Bengal is concerned, the BJP is still living in a fool’s paradise. Its candidates will lose deposits in most of the seats,” TMC MP and spokesperson Saugata Roy said.

Washington: US President-elect Joe Biden has named more than 20 Indian-Americans as members, including three as team leads, to his agency review teams (ARTs) that are responsible for evaluating the operations of the key federal agencies in the current administration to ensure a smooth transfer of power.

Biden’s transition team said this is one of the most diverse agency review teams in presidential transition history.

Of the hundreds of ART members, more than half are women, and approximately 40 percent represent communities historically underrepresented in the federal government, including people of color, people who identify as LGBTQ+, and people with disabilities.

Agency review teams are responsible for understanding the operations of each agency, ensuring a smooth transfer of power, and preparing for President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and their Cabinet to hit the ground running on Day One.

At least three Indian Americans have been named as team leads to various ARTs.

Arun Majumdar from the prestigious Stanford University is the team lead for the Department of Energy ART. Rahul Gupta is the team lead for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Kiran Ahuja has been named Team Lead for the Office of Personnel Management. Puneet Talwar has been named to the Department of State ART. Pav Singh has been named two ARTs for the National Security Council and Office of Science and Technology.

Similarly, Arun Venkatraman has been named to two ARTs Department of Commerce and USTR.

Other prominent Indian Americans named to ARTs are Pravina Raghavan, Atman Trivedi for Department of Commerce and Shital Shah for Department of Education; R Ramesh and Rama Zakaria for the Department of Energy; Subhasri Ramanathan for the Department of Homeland Security; Raj De for Department of Justice; and Seema Nanda and Raj Nayak for Department of Labour.

Reena Aggarwal and Satyam Khanna have been named to the Federal Reserve, Banking and Securities Regulators ARTs; Bhavya Lal for NASA; Dilpreet Sidhu for National Security Council, Divya Kumaraiah for Office of Management and Budget; Kumar Chandran for Department of Agriculture; and Aneesh Chopra to US Postal Service. Almost all of them are volunteers.

These teams are composed of highly experienced and talented professionals with deep backgrounds in crucial policy areas across the federal government.

Our nation is grappling with a pandemic, an economic crisis, urgent calls for racial justice, and the existential threat of climate change. We must be prepared for a seamless transfer of knowledge to the incoming administration to protect our interests at home and abroad. The agency review process will help lay the foundation for meeting these challenges on Day One, said Senator Ted Kaufman, Co-Chair, Biden-Harris Transition.

The work of the agency review teams is critical for protecting national security, addressing the ongoing public health crisis, and demonstrating that America remains the beacon of democracy for the world, he said.

The transition team announced the agency review teams even as outgoing President Donald Trump’s administration has yet to formally recognize Biden as the president-elect.

Formal recognition from the General Services Administration is needed to allow transition staff access to federal workers and much of the information they will need.

Trump, a Republican, has declined to concede the closely-fought November 3 presidential race to Democrat Biden and is mounting legal fights in several key battleground states alleging voter irregularities or widespread fraud in the election — billed as one of the most divisive and bitter in recent American history.

President Trump has made repeated and baseless claims that the Democratic Party has tried to steal the election.

Once the GSA Administrator ascertains the results of the election, the ART members will work directly with staff in federal agencies to ensure that the incoming Biden-Harris administration is able to effectively achieve the policy goals of the President and Vice President-elect.

The ARTs will proceed by meeting with former agency officials and experts who closely follow federal agencies, and with officials from think tanks, labor groups, trade associations, and other NGOs.

Many of the ART members have had long careers in the federal agencies they will now help prepare for the incoming Biden-Harris administration, the transition said.

HYDERABAD: Buoyed by the results of Bihar assembly elections, the AIMIM which bagged five seats is now looking to spread its wings to states such as Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

Addressing reporters here on Tuesday night, MIM’s president Asaduddin Owaisi said the party will fight for justice inthe eastern state’s Seemanchal region.

Reacting to allegations that his party was dividing anti-BJP votes, Owaisi said he was running a political party that has a right to contest on its own.

“You mean we should not fight elections. You (Congress) went and sat in Shiv Sena’s lap (in Maharashtra). If anyone asks why did you fight the elections. I will fight in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and will fight every election in the country. Do I need to ask anyone’s permission to fight the polls,” he said when asked whether the party would contest in any other state.

He however, did not clarify whether the party would contest on its own or in alliance with other parties.

“AIMIM will fight in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Time only will tell with whom we will ally,” Owaisi added.

Attacking Congress leader from West Bengal, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury for reportedly calling AIMIM as ‘vote cutter’ in the Bihar polls, Owaisi sought to know what he has done for the welfare of Muslims in his constituency.

“Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has to respond why the condition of Muslims is so bad in his own constituency. He has to say what he did for Muslims,” he said.

“AIMIM will fight the polls in West Bengal. AIMIM is coming to Bengal,” he added.

Owaisi is often criticised by Congress and other parties as the “B-team” of BJP denting anti-saffron party’s votes.

Owaisi-led AIMIM seems to have cut big time into the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan vote in the Seemanchal region in the third phase of the polls, according to poll pundits.

The Hyderabad MP-led party was in the fray in 20 seats in Bihar elections, a majority of which went to polls in the third phase on November 7, as part of the Grand Democratic Secular Front that has four other parties, including Upendra Kushwaha”s Rashtriya Lok Samta Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.

The party’s victory in five seats has become inconsequential in terms of lending support in case of hung- assembly as NDA emerged as the clear winner.

When asked if his party will support Mahagathbandhan in case of a shortfall of majority, Owaisi did not give a direct answer saying, “Why should I speculate, when the final results are out then a decision will be taken.”

Results of Bihar Assembly polls were not completely declared when the question was posed.

According to statistics provided by the Election Commission of India, AIMIM got 1.24 per cent of over 4 crorevotes polled.

The party unsuccessfully contested in Bihar Assembly polls in 2015 and secured less than 0.5 per cent votes.

MIM also unsuccessfully contested in UP Assembly polls in 2017.

Besides Telangana and Bihar, MIM has two MLAs and one MP in Maharashtra.

Among other parties, AIMIM has won five seats, and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has won one seat. One Independent candidate has also won.

PATNA: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won an absolute majority in Bihar, winning 122 seats in a closely contested election that saw counting continue stretching over 19 hours and wrapping up only in the early hours on Wednesday.

The Mahagathbandhan including Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress, and Left parties managed to secure 110 seats in the state’s 243-seat legislative assembly.

The first mass election in the country amidst conditions created by COVID-19 has paved the way for the return of Chief Minister Kumar for the fourth successive term in office.

The closely contestested battle saw the Mahagathbandhan narrowing the gap between the two alliances during the day with political parties in fray keeping an eye on the narrow margins.

Counting of votes, which began at 8 am at 55 counting centres, across 38 districts of the state saw BJP leading on two seats and Janata Dal-United on one seat at 3 am on Wednesday.

The counting process was slow as there were 1,06,515 polling stations this time compared to 72,723 in 2015 polls as part of preventive measures against COVID-19.

While BJP performed a stellar role in NDA’s victory winning 72 seats, RJD also gave a spectacular performance by bagging 75 seats and emerged as the single largest party in the 243-member Bihar legislative assembly.

The Congress could win only 19 of 70 seats it contested and it impacted the Mahagathbandhan tally.

Among the constituents of NDA, Janata Dal-United (JDU) bagged 42 seats. Four seats went into the accounts of the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) and 4 to Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular).

Apart from Congress and the RJD, other Mahagathbandhan allies CPI and CPI-M won two seats each while CPI(M-L) secured a win in 12 constituencies.

Among other parties, AIMIM has won five seats, and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has won one seat. One Independent candidate has also won.

Chirag Paswan led-Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) which fielded over 130 candidates only managed to secure only one seat.

RJD secured 23.1 per cent vote share, the highest in this polls, followed BJP with 19.5 per cent. JDU and Congress got vote share of 15.4 per cent and 9.5 per cent respectively.

A delegation of RJD and Congress went to the Election Commission office in Patna and alleged “tampering” in the counting of votes in some constituencies.

After leaving the ECI office, RJD leader Manoj Jha who was part of the delegation said that tampering had been done on over a dozen seats in an effort to change “people’s mandate” and added that EC has assured the delegation it will “try to address their grievances”.

“There are over dozens of seats where tampering has been done. They are trying to change the people’s mandate. Even after all such ill-intended attempts, we will form the government. EC has assured us that they will try to address all our grievances. We trust the EC but not the district administration,” Jha told reporters.

Umesh Sinha, Secretary-General, ECI said that the Election Commission has never worked under anybody’s pressure.

“All officials and machinery are working sincerely for declaration of Bihar election results,” he said.

In 2015 Assembly polls, RJD with 80 seats had emerged as the single largest party in the elections, followed by JD-U (71). BJP was reduced to 53 seats and got the largest vote share (24.42 per cent).

With indication of a NDA victory in sight, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter to thank the people of Bihar whom he said clearly stated development as their priority.

“The poor in villages, farmers, labourers, merchants, shopkeepers and every section of Bihar have relied on the NDA’s mantra of sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas. I again assure every citizen of Bihar that for the balanced development of every person, every region, we will continue to work with full dedication,” he tweeted in Hindi.

“Every voter in Bihar has clearly stated that he or she is an aspirant and priority is only and only development. The blessings of the NDA’s good governance again after 15 years in Bihar shows what Bihar’s dreams are, what Bihar’s expectations are,” PM Modi said.

Other leaders like Union Ministers Amit Shah, Ravi Shankar Prasad and BJP chief JP Nadda also extended their congratulations on the poll victory.

As per the trends available till 12.45 pm, the NDA was leading in 126 seats — the BJP in 73, the JD(U) in 47 and the VIP in six.

PATNA: The JD(U) on Tuesday exuded confidence that the NDA will again form a government in Bihar under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as trends showed the political alliance marching ahead of the RJD-led Grand Alliance.

As per the trends available till 12.45 pm, the NDA was leading in 126 seats — the BJP in 73, the JD(U) in 47 and the VIP in six.

The RJD was leading in 66 seats, the Congress in 21, the CPI(ML) Liberation in 14, the CPI and the AIMIM in three each, the LJP and the CPI(M) in two each and the BSP in one.

Independent candidates were leading in five seats.

“I have been saying this for a long time that the NDA will form the government under the leadership of CM Nitish Kumar.

The opposition ran a misleading campaign with several allurements to woo voters,” state JD(U) chief Vashishtha Narayan Singh told reporters here.

When asked whether the BJP or the JD(U) will lead the government, Singh said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP chief J P Nadda have made it “amply clear” on several occasions as to who will form the government.

The trio and other senior leaders had said on several occasions during campaigning that Nitish Kumar will lead the government if the NDA returns to power in the state.

Bihar BJP chief Sanjay Jaiswal, however, asked the media to wait till 5 pm for comments.