The world order may have been upended, battered by another war. But it is hard to tell this looking at the list of India’s most powerful. For the 12th year, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah take the top two slots in The RMA News list, with nine of the top 10 the same as in 2025.

That’s a testament to how power equations remain largely unchanged even ahead of another round of Assembly elections. The list also tells the story of the Opposition’s failure to check the BJP, even as the latter pushes into new territory. Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee are the only two non-NDA leaders who make the top 20. If the Congress leader’s efforts mean he has just about kept his No. 9 slot, the Trinamool Congress chief continues to stay one step ahead of the indefatigable BJP.

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has been a collateral — and not unwilling — beneficiary of this high-stakes political fight, vaulting to No. 20. In 2024, his counterpart was at a much more modest No. 63. The other new entrants in the list, who rank as close, are here by virtue of the posts they now occupy — Chief Justice Surya Kant (No. 17), and BJP chief Nitin Nabin (No. 21).

US President Donald Trump’s volatility (to put it mildly) means Commerce, Finance and External Affairs Ministries have to be constantly on their toes and, hence, Piyush Goyal (No. 5 from No. 12) joins Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar in the top 10. Not surprisingly, NSA Ajit Doval, the government’s eyes and ears on all things security, climbs too, to No. 29.

With six years plus and counting as Principal Secretary to the PM, PK Mishra continues to be one of Modi’s most trusted (the PM rushed him to Ahmedabad after the Air India plane crash in June 2025) aides, and surges by 46 spots to No. 32. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi sees the same rise, to No. 35, as she takes on a more hands-on role in the party, with Assam to be her litmus test after UP.

One person watching the Congress performance closely would be AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, who is at No. 55 now, up by 34, as he climbs into the space vacated by the Opposition on minority issues.

In a BJP where power flows from the top, only a rare party CM such as Yogi Adityanath, Devendra Fadnavis and Himanta Biswa Sarma figures at the top; Opposition leaders fill more rungs on this count. But the CM with the biggest fall is Nitish Kumar; down 63 ranks to No. 84, after a farewell to Bihar. Nitish called it his own decision. However, surely the Hero No. 1 of Bihar, who had a glorious poll victory just months earlier, would have wished for a better ending.

Talking about heroes and endings, the two new entrants from Bollywood in the list are Aditya Dhar and Arijit Singh — Dhar for announcing his arrival as a dhurandhar of “patriotism” packaged slickly; Arijit for “exiting” while the music still sang.

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The remarks came on the day when Nitish Kumar faced questions over the under-construction bridge collapse on river Ganga on Sunday in Bihar, while he was trying to bridge the gap between the opposition parties ahead of the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Speaking to the media here, Congress` Bihar in-charge Bhakta Charan Das said, “I spoke to Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav on Sunday. He wants all the parties` chiefs who are capable of taking the decision to attend the meeting on June 12. This was not happening, so it has been decided to speak to everyone and arrange a meeting after June 22.”

The Congress leader`s remarks came hours after the Bihar Chief Minister speaking to the media in Patna, said, “Except for the Congress, the majority of the opposition political parties had agreed to meet in Patna on June 12.

“The Congress leadership was not comfortable with the venue. Since, there was no point in meeting without the grand old party, I asked him to discuss the party and then finalise a date. We will match the date with every opposition political party and then decide about the meeting. For now, the scheduled meeting on June 12 stands postponed,” Nitish Kumar said.

The JD-U leader had called the meeting of like-minded parties on June 12 in Patna after discussing with the top Congress leadership and also after meeting and convincing the top leaders of several parties in last one and half month.

Kumar was also conveyed of the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi`s return from the US on June 10, after which the date of June 12 was finalised and the JD-U leader invited several leaders like Akhilesh Yadav, Mamata Banerjee, Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray among others who gave their go ahead to attend the meeting.

However, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK leader MK Stalin then cited his engagements on June 12 and asked to postpone the meeting for another date.

Following Stalin`s request, Congress also came forward with the same proposal citing the personal engagements of party President Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi and asked to convene the meeting on June 22 or some other dates.

This demand was also echoed by CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury. Thus, looking at the request of several leaders meeting has been postponed.

Source: ANI

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“I have instructed officials to take strict action,” Nitish Kumar said.

No casualties or injuries were reported in the incident that took place on Sunday evening and was caught on camera by some bystanders. The bridge was reportedly being constructed at a cost of more than Rs 1,700 crore and was supposed to have been completed by November 2019.

The bridge collapse prompted Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav to hold a hurried press conference.

“It may be recalled that a portion of this bridge had collapsed on April 30 last year. We had, thereafter, approached IIT-Roorkee, which is esteemed for its expertise in construction matters, to conduct a study. It is yet to come up with a final report but experts who had studied the structure had informed us that there were serious defects,” Yadav said at the presser.

Last year, a portion of this bridge had given away in a thunderstorm. It was an incident which was widely talked about and I strongly raised it in my capacity as the then Leader of the Opposition, he added.

Yadav said that upon coming to power, his government ordered an inquiry and sought an expert opinion. He disclosed that ‘many structural defects’ have been pointed out by experts and that they have already pulled down many portions which have been flagged as particularly vulnerable.

Bihar bridge collapse: BJP demands Nitish Kumar’s resignation

Bihar Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Samrat Choudhary came out with a statement demanding the resignation of Nitish Kumar, who had snapped ties with the saffron party in August last year. 

“Sub-standard materials were used for the construction of the bridge. The CM is least bothered about the development of Bihar… He is busy on his tour. He must resign from his post after this incident,” Choudhary said.

Fellow BJP leader Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, a former Bhagalpur MP, also blamed the mishap on ‘corruption’ and demanded a high-level inquiry into the incident.

He also alleged that the incident ‘has put a question mark on construction works being undertaken across the state, many of which have been awarded to the same contractor’.

Source: Bureau

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“There is no need for a new Parliament building… Those who had no contribution to the country’s fight for independence are trying to distort history. It is quite surprising that the President of India and the Vice-President, who is the chairman of Rajya Sabha, have not been invited to the inauguration programme,” Kumar, who had been a cabinet minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee, told reporters here.

“JD(U) strongly holds that the president is an important part of the country’s parliamentary system. As the president, Droupadi Murmu holds the highest constitutional post in the country and she should have been invited by the Narendra Modi government to inaugurate the new Parliament. Building,” the party’s state president Umesh Singh Kushwaha told reporters here on Saturday.

Asked about his decision to skip the Niti Aayog meeting in Delhi on Saturday, Kumar said, ?It was in the morning and I had other engagements in Patna during the day… Therefore I could not go to Delhi. Had the meeting been held in the afternoon, I would have attended it. I sent a list of ministers and officials who could attend the meeting, but there was no response from the Centre. So no representative from Bihar is attending today’s meeting”.

On the Reserve Bank of India’s decision to withdraw Rs 2000 denomination banknotes from circulation after September 30, 2023, Kumar said, “First one thousand currency notes were withdrawn and now Rs 2000… I fail to understand their intentions”.

To questions on a likely meeting of non-BJP parties here to discuss opposition unity before the coming Lok Sabha elections, he said, “We will talk about it later”. Kumar had met Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee in March who asked him to hold a meeting of the opposition parties in Patna in May end.

Source: PTI

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