'The Congress has faded and fighting for survival.'
Lalu Prasad's eldest daughter Misa Bharti, a Rajya Sabha MP, and elder son Tej Pratap Yadav have been omitted from RJD's star campaigners' list released on Thursday for the upcoming by-elections to a couple of assembly seats in Bihar, a development seen as an attempt to push them to the margins in an intra-family feud to control the single largest party in the state assembly.
In some Bihar constituencies, candidates named Ram are fighting each other.
Start afresh! This is the message of Congress President Sonia Gandhi to partymen from Bihar in the wake of the party's drubbing in the recently concluded Bihar assembly polls.
Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president Mehboob Ali Kaiser and Congress Legislative Party leader Ashok Ram figure in a list of 77 candidates announced by the Congress for the six-phase Bihar assembly elections beginning on October 21. While Kaiser, who was appointed the PCC chief a few months ago, will be contesting from Simri Bakhtiarpur segment, Ram will fight the elections from Kusheshwar Asthan seat.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal with 19 seats, Congress on 9, Rashtriya Lok Samta Party on 5, Hindustani Awam Morcha and Vikassheel Insan Party -- in phases three to seven of the general elections.