His inheritance was a double-edged sword because the NDA was understandably interested only in highlighting that part of the RJD's tenure in government that evokes kidnapping, extortion, and lawlessness.
This election is a thank you note to Nitish Babu from a grateful Bihari people, notes Sheela Bhatt.
Mokama will witness one of this Bihar assembly election's hottest battles as Janata Dal-United candidate Anant Singh takes on the Rashtriya Janata Dal's Veena Devi, whose husband Surajbhan Singh, like her JD-U rival, is considered one of the state's tough guys or as they say in these parts, a Bahubali.
Tejashwi Yadav and Prashant Kishore claim that a group of senior Janata Dal-United leaders and retired bureaucrats, locally dubbed the 'Bhunja Party', manages the state administration on Nitish Kumar's behalf.
Nitish thought that his stakes as chief minister were far greater than his stakes in protecting one of his party MLAs. He could not allow his rule-of-law train to be derailed by a small rock on the track. On the contrary, if he removed it to keep the train moving at a steady speed he would gain strong public admiration and sympathy that would help him take the masses along in carrying out other tasks. A fascinating excerpt from Arun Sinha's Nitish Kumar And The Rise Of Bihar.
'...in comparison to his presence in the previous election campaign where he looked robust and vibrant.' 'His television and social media interviews looked dull and predictable.' 'There could be a different kind of fatigue of being out of power for a long time at work here.'
If women voters are mobilised in big numbers to the voting booths on November 6 and 11 by the Nitish Kumar-led NDA, then it will be quite difficult for the Tejashwi Yadav-led Mahagathbandhan to defeat the incumbent government, points out Sheela Bhatt.
'If the BJP had its way, it would sideline him in favour of someone else. But that's not feasible. There is no vote catcher in Bihar for the BJP.'
>The Indian Army still uses old British-era names and recruits soldiers based on caste or region, which hurts national unity, argues Colonel K Thammayya Udupa (retd).
A careful calculation of the BJP's support base seems to have been at work in the cabinet expansion that took place a day after the party's national president chaired a meeting of the "core group" here.
This Bhumihar leader has always been party supremo Kumar's strength, as this caste in Bihar is known to have wide political influence despite its small size.
Samajwadi Party candidate Afzal Ansari is the incumbent MP and slain don Mukhtar Ansari's elder brother. Afzal had won the 2019 election on a BSP ticket after defeating the BJP's Manoj Sinha, now the J&K lieutenant governor.
The RJD has fielded six women candidates, some of them are wives of bahubalis.
Rahul Gandhi has spoken to Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav about the Begusarai seat, but the CPI is unwilling to give up the seat.
'There will be no khel on February 12 during the confidence motion vote.'
'The BJP will use Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha to check Nitish Kumar.' 'They will not allow him to function freely as before.'
A day after the by-election results in Bihar, though leaders of the Rahtriya Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed victory after the RJD and BJP retained the Mokama and Gopalganj assembly seats respectively, the fact that both seats were won with a reduced margin indicates that there is nothing to celebrate for either party.
The percentage of households who live on less than Rs 6,000 a month or less than Rs 200 a day among the Scheduled tribe households (42.91 per cent) was almost the same as among scheduled caste households (42.78 per cent).
Kartik Kumar, a Rashtriya Janata Dal MLC, who became the state's law minister in the new Nitish Kumar government, resigned hours after being moved to a lesser significant Sugarcane Department on Wednesday night.
'This is going to generate a new debate on reservation because the quota for Economically Weaker Sections is 10%, and that is for nearly 16% of the population.' 'For 16% you are giving 10%. This is set to raise eyebrows among the OBCs after the caste survey.'
A bill will be brought in the assembly during the ongoing session, possibly this week according to sources in the cabinet.
Political watchers say the caste survey report was made public to play the OBC-EBC card and stall the BJP's campaign to win most of Bihar's 40 Lok Sabha seats.
The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year's general election.
Many has termed the state government's move of considering 'third gender' a separate caste in the ongoing exercise as a 'criminal act'
Former Bihar MP Anand Mohan, who is serving a life sentence in the killing of Indian Administrative Service officer G Krishnaiah, is to be set free along with 26 others who have been lodged in different prisons of the state for more than 14 years.
'It is the RJD, otherwise known for misgovernance, which has offered a candidate of clean and performing credentials, rather than the NDA,' points out Mohammad Sajjad.
BJP candidate Kedar Prasad Gupta defeated Manoj Singh Kushwaha of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United by 3,645 votes in Kurhani.
'Giriraj Singh has told the central leadership that he is being made a target by some BJP leaders and some JD-U in a conspiracy to defeat him in the polls.'
'In Bihar, the Dalits are not a consolidated socio-political constituency,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Articulate segments of Muzaffarpur have been at the the forefront of all anti-establishment mobilisation, which makes their silence over the atrocities in a shelter home in the town puzzling. Could it be that if those accused of horrific crimes belong to dominant castes and if the victims belong to the vulnerable groups, then the middle classes become mute, asks Mohammad Sajjad.
Terms of the two dozen seats had expired last year though elections were deferred because of a delay in Panchayat polls which could not be held in time on account of the COVID 19 pandemic.
'By naming Tejashwi as the next CM candidate, he has put us in a dilemma.' 'Who will lead us in 2025?' 'What will happen to the party after 2025?'
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
The announcement comes a day after the opposition's Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) allotted just one seat to the Left parties in Bihar.
'Like one-one drop of water fills earthen pots and one-one brick helps to construct a house, donation of Rs 1 to my campaign fund will help me fight to take the voices of marginalised and exploited people to Parliament.'
The JD-U, may be the BJP's partner for now. But it is a party at all only because of Nitish Kumar. The day Nitish Kumar exits, the JD-U will split into hundreds of pieces. Obviously, Prashant Kishor is setting himself up as the vessel that will collect all the pieces and put them together in some sort of political instrument, explains Aditi Phadnis.
Despite the hype over the possible candidature of All India Congress Committee General Secretary Digvijaya Singh for the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat, the Congress has narrowed down its choice to local legislator Ajay Rai and former party MP Rajesh Mishra, with the former emerging as a front runner.
Keshav Prasad Maurya's election from Sirathu in Kaushambi will be among the keenly watched contests in UP. If he and the BJP win, will he be luckier this time?
The Bihar CM has made a sagacious attempt to consolidate his extremely backward castes (EBC) support base while trying to make a dent into RJD's Muslim-Yadav combine.
Former Indian Administrative Service officer A K Sharma was on Friday named a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate for the Uttar Pradesh legislative council polls a day after he joined the party, fuelling speculation that he will get a ministerial post.
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