The Congress on Thursday demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should immediately chair an all-party meeting in the aftermath of the Delhi blast and asked whether the “new normal doctrine” defined by the government following the Pahalgam attack of treating any future terror strike as an ‘act of war’ stands.

BJP National General Secretary B. L. Santhosh, along with Northeast Coordinator Sambit Patra, arrived in Manipur on Wednesday and held a crucial meeting with BJP MLAs at the party’s state headquarters in Imphal. The meeting was presided over by State President A. Sarda Devi. The closed-door session was attended by BJP MLAs from both the hills and the valley, including former Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, Speaker Th. Satyabrata Singh, and Rajya Sabha MP Leishemba Sanajaoba. However, MLAs from the Kuki community were notably absent.

The Opposition Mahagathbandhan “no holds barred” campaign centred around the “vote chori” allegations and the spirited efforts by Prashant Kishor’s fledgling Jan Suraaj Party will fail to dethrone the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government in Bihar, or so predict the exit polls. The average of all exit polls foretells a sweeping victory for the ruling alliance in Bihar.

At least 9 people have been killed and 20 injured in an explosion in a slow-moving Hyundai i20 at a signal near Gate No. 1 of Delhi’s Red Fort (Lal Qila) Metro Station around 6:50 pm on Monday. Three people were in the car when the explosion took place.

The skies over Bihar turned into a battleground for weeks, as helicopters and chartered planes carried top politicians across the state in a campaign of unmatched scale and cost. By Sunday evening, the airborne armada fell silent, marking the end of campaigning for the second phase of assembly elections after more than 450 sorties, according to news sources.

In Bihar’s highest-ever voter turnout, nearly 65% of 3.75 crore electors cast their ballots on Thursday across 121 constituencies in the first phase of the assembly elections — a high-stakes contest seen as a litmus test of the ruling NDA’s popularity.