Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra entered Bihar today, a day after his party went from being a part of the state’s ruling coalition to the Opposition, thanks to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s fifth flip-flop in a decade.

Mr Gandhi’s yatra, a desperate attempt by the Congress to rally support ahead of Lok Sabha polls, started at Manipur on January 14. After travelling through the Northeast, it reached Bengal on Thursday before Mr Gandhi took a break and flew to Delhi.

When Mr Gandhi boarded the plane to Delhi, the Congress was part of the Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar led by Mr Kumar. As he resumes the yatra after a two-day break, Mr Kumar is in the same post, but his new partners are BJP and the Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha.

The yatra started in Sonapur in Bengal’s Uttar Dinajpur district this morning and reached Kishanganj in Bihar around 11 am. A Muslim-dominated area, the Kishanganj Lok Sabha constituency has been with the Congress since the 2009 Lok Sabha election. The rally will move to Purnea tomorrow and Katihar the day after. Both districts are JDU strongholds and when the yatra started, it was friendly territory for the Congress. Now, the equations have changed.

This will Mr Gandhi’s first visit to Bihar since the 2020 Assembly election. The 2020 election was followed by NDA alliance forming the government under Mr Kumar. Two years later, in August 2022, Mr Kumar walked out of the NDA alliance and reunited with estranged allies RJD and Congress. Yesterday, he made another flip-flop, teaming up with NDA again.

Leaders of the state Congress said the party’s alliance partners in Bihar, RJD and CPI(ML)-L, have been invited to the Purnea rally.

During the public addresses during the Bihar leg of the Yatra, Mr Gandhi is likely to target Mr Kumar over his latest volte-face. The Congress has reacted strongly to the Bihar reversal, with party president Mallikarjun Kharge referring to Mr Kumar as “aaya ram gaya ram” – a term used for politicians who keep changing sides.

The JDU, on its part, has accused the Congress of trying to hijack the INDIA platform. In his first remarks after resigning as Chief Minister, Mr Kumar, who was at the forefront of the formation of the Opposition bloc, said things were not moving in the INDIA bloc. Senior JDU leader KC Tyagi said the alliance ended because of the Congress’s arrogance.

After Bihar, the yatra is scheduled to re-enter Bengal before proceeding to Jharkhand. The march will end at Mumbai in March.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is interacting with ‘exam warriors’ at Pariksha Pe Charcha today at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. Before the event, the prime minister shared his excitement for the programme. PM Modi holds the interaction with students every year before the Board exams. In addition to discussing exam stress relief, he also offered insights and useful advice from past programmes.

Here are the LIVE updates on PM’s Pariksha Pe Charcha:

Union Minister Shantanu Thakur on Monday said the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) would be implemented in the country within a week.

During an interview with a news channel, Mr Thakur, a BJP MP from Bongaon, an area with the majority of people belonging to the Matua community in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, said that swift implementation of the contentious legislation would be made within seven days.

The CAA, enacted by the BJP-led government at the Centre in 2019, aims at granting Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants, including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians, from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2014.

“The CAA will be implemented very soon. It will be implemented within seven days. This is my guarantee,” said Mr Thakur, also a leader of the Matua community.

Mr Thakur, the union minister of state for ports, shipping and waterways, has made a similar comment on Sunday.

He has been claiming that the CAA would be implemented in the country ahead of the Lok Sabha polls this year.

Matuas, who constitute a large chunk of the state’s Scheduled Caste population, had been migrating to West Bengal since the 1950s, primarily due to religious persecution in erstwhile East Pakistan which later became Bangladesh.

Since the nineties, political parties in West Bengal have actively sought to secure the support of the Matuas, who, due to their significant population and tendency to vote together, are considered a valuable voting bloc akin to the minorities.

The Matua community is believed to benefit the most from the implementation of the CAA.

Thakur’s assertion on the CAA’s implementation comes amidst reports this month, suggesting that the rules for the legislation would be notified “much before” the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections.

His remarks elicited strong reactions from the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the state, which has vehemently opposed the CAA, labelling it “divisive”.

“Our party supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have clearly said that CAA won’t be implemented in West Bengal. The BJP leaders are attempting political gimmickry by making such false promises before the Lok Sabha elections,” TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said.

Last month, Union Home Minister Amit Shah reiterated that the implementation of CAA is inevitable as it is the law of the land.

During a BJP meeting in Kolkata, he had accused Banerjee of misleading people on the CAA issue The TMC has consistently opposed the CAA, with Banerjee alleging that the BJP is “exploiting” the citizenship issue for political gain.

The promise of implementing the controversial CAA served as a major electoral platform for the BJP in the previous Lok Sabha and assembly polls in West Bengal.

Party leaders believe that it played a pivotal role in the BJP’s rise in the state.

According to the manual of parliamentary procedures, the rules for any legislation should have been framed within six months of presidential assent or seek an extension from the committees on subordinate legislation in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

Since 2020, the Home Ministry has been taking extensions at regular intervals from the parliamentary committees for framing the rules.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)