TMC chief Mamata Banerjee had proposed the names of Sharad Pawar, Farooq Abdullah and Gopalkrishna Gandhi, but the Congress and the Left block reached out to Yashwant Sinha instead
The BJP managed to win Azamgarh with tacit assistance from BSP leader Mayawati. She put up a local Muslim candidate who split the SP vote right down the middle
When Hemant Soren was asked to give one Rajya Sabha seat to the Congress, he turned down the proposal and gave the seat to a local tribal leader instead
Ram Madhav is a member of the National Executive of RSS and a founding member of the governing council of India Foundation. He is the author of, among other titles, Partitioned Freedom and The Hindutva Paradigm