The Congress high command has finalized the name of Cheruku Srinivasa Reddy as the party candidate in Dubbaka Assembly by-election. The campaign has picked up pace all of a sudden with the Congress leaders descending on the rural constituency in large number. Telangana Finance Minister T. Harish Rao has already been on the campaign mode for weeks. 

The battle lines are drawn in Dubbaka constituency, where by-election is taking place, with  the selection of candidates by all the three major parties. The Congress party had managed to find a strong  candidate when Cheruku Srinivasa Reddy, son of former MLA and minister Cheruku Mutyam Reddy, had crossed over to the party from the TRS. He joined the Congress on Tuesday at Gandhi Bhavan in the presence of senior party leaders.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and BJP president J.P. Nadda had met on Monday and finalized the seat-sharing formula. The LJP scare appears to have helped the BJP in scaling down the JDU number which was pitched much higher. The LJP leader Chirag Paswan would stick to his formula of contesting against the JDU candidates and supporting the BJP during and after the polls. Upendra Kushwaha of Rastriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) will have alliance with Mayavati’s Bahujana Samaj Party and Loktantrik Party (Socialist).

The confusion among  the BJP workers was sought to be cleared when the BJP announced that Nitish Kumar is the leader of NDA in Bihar. The two major partners in the alliance, the JDU and the BJP, had several rounds of discussions before announcing the seat sharing formula on Tuesday in Patna.

If the media reports were to be believed, the BJP and the JDU, the NAD partners in Bihar, are up to a gamble which might result in mass suicide. The Lok Janshakti Party, which polled less than five percent of the vote in 2015 Assembly elections, has been orchestrating a grand plan that includes the BJP and excludes the JD-U headed by chief minister, Nitish Kumar.

BJP in Bihar has been unable till the other day to decide whether to hunt with the hound or run with the hare. It appears to have settled down to do both – run with the hare and hunt with the hound. Bihar has been witnessing a strange and interesting  political drama scripted by the younger Paswan, Chirag, in his endeavor to increase vote percentage of his party, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).

The question of YSRCP joining the NDA has come to the fore in view of the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy in Delhi on Tuesday. Earlier, the CM traveled to Delhi to meet Home Minister Amit Shah on September 23 and 24. It was supposed to be a preliminary meeting. The prospects of the YSRCP joining the NDA may have come up in the discussion or the meeting may have been arranged only to discuss that issue. The YSRCP leaders flatly deny that there is any such move under consideration. But the speculations persist.

Paswans in Bihar appear to be veering to the concept of friendly contest with the BJP by going out of the NDA alliance at  the State level. The junior Paswan, Chirag, who is heading Lok Janshakti Party (LJP),  had meetings with BJP president J.P. Nadda and former party president and home minister,  Amit Shah, in Delhi on Thursday. BJP will not field candidates in the constituencies where LPJ would be in serious contest. Chirag has assured the BJP leaders that in the post-election scenario, the LJP would support the BJP chief ministerial candidate.

The battle for Bihar has begun in right earnest with the Election Commission announcing the poll dates. This will be the first election after the dreaded disease COVID-19 had set in. It is also the first elections without Lalu Prasad Yadav of RJD canvassing physically. Polling would be held in three phases – on October 24, November 3 and November 7. The results would be out on November 10.

Although BJP President J.P. Nadda had taken his own time to reconstitute his team, he finally announced on Saturday some very important changes. Some prominent names were missing while some others had staged a comeback. Overall, the 70-member new team appears to be cogent and talented. Nadda took over as party chief in January this year from Amit Shah who was made home minister some months prior to that. Dropping almost a dozen seniors was a sensational decision.