Many eyebrows were raised in Bihar on Monday as news broke of a meeting between Communist Party of India's rising star Kanhaiya Kumar and Ashok Choudhary, a minister and key aide of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
"Nobody is above law. With the Supreme Court giving its judgment, it is not right to make a political comment," the Rajya Sabha member said. Asked if the verdict was a setback to the Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra government, Raut said, "Such things do happen in legal battles."
'If the BJP continues with Nitish as CM, it will not consolidate its position further in future.'
Anwar, an AICC general secretary, came out with a flurry of tweets calling for 'urgent and deep introspection' over the debacle of the party, the second largest constituent of the opposition coalition, which contested as many as 70 seats but returned with a tally of just 19.
Festive atmosphere and bonhomie prevailed in Lok Sabha on Thursday with members donning traditional dress and head gears and many taking oath in their mother tongue.
The Union minister complained of breathlessness.
Counting's underway and the fate of the candidates is awaited. As we wait for the results with bated breath, here's how your heavyweights are faring for now.
A powerful lobby of BJP leaders -- mostly from the upper castes -- want to give no more than 70-80 assembly seats to its three allies.
The state polls are due in October-November.
'Maybe the BJP believes, in the post-poll scenario, it will have the might to foist, anybody endorsed by the RSS, upon Bihar,' observes Mohammad Sajjad.
Nishant is an engineer like his father. He is tech-savvy and likes to visit religious places as well.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday tore into the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, blaming its "appeasement politics" for the failure of law enforcement agencies to rein in terror activities when it was in power and claiming it raised the "bogey of Hindu terror" to "misdirect" investigation.
'When our forefathers were fighting for Independence from British rule, Jinnah was pushing for the creation of an Islamic state'
The National Democratic Alliance in Bihar suffered a jolt on Wednesday as a Lok Janshakti Party MP resigned from the party post of general secretary and two BJP MLAs who were denied ticket met Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
This is the first time, since the JDU-BJP alliance came to power in 2005, that the saffron party has staked claim for the speakers post.
A number of senior faces from the outgoing cabinet including Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal, Narendra Singh Tomar and Prakash Javadekar are expected to figure in the new cabinet.
Both the BJP and the JD-U abetted the LJP split but interestingly, independently. And there hangs a tale of conflicting interests, gamesmanship, subterfuge, and retribution, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
As the ruling alliance starts feeling the tremors, discussions on new equations have also started, reports Satyavrat Mishra.
Addressing a press conference, Paswan said he was happy that the BJP had emerged "much bigger and stronger" in Bihar, and ruled out any possibility of a truck with the opposition Grand Alliance, comprising RJD, Congress and three Left parties, citing "ideological differences".
The focus now shifts to November 10 counting of votes.
About 2.34 crore voters, spread across 78 assembly segments of the 243-strong assembly, will decide the fates of 1,204 candidates, including the Speaker and 12 members of the state cabinet.
This is the first full-scale review of VIP protectees by the Union home ministry after the Modi 2.0 government took charge.
The body will be kept at his residence in New Delhi and on Monday, at the LJP office in Patna for paying last respects. He will be cremated in the Bihar capital on Monday evening.
There are also over 10 million voters in the 18-29 age bracket. Winning them over could be Nitish Kumar's biggest challenge, reports Aditi Phadnis.
A sea of people could be seen, besides dignitaries led by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, at the cremation site on the banks of the Ganges in the city that has been a witness to the Lok Janshakti Party founders long journey -- from a young MLA of the socialist party in the late 1960s to having served under six prime ministers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday assured at the all-party meeting that the government is ready to discuss all issues.
Lalu Prasad Yadav's wife Rabri Devi and daughter Misa Bharti lost from Saran and Pataliputra seats respectively in Bihar to BJP candidates. MI Khan reports.
The JD(U)-BJP alliance also lambasted the actress for lodging a 'baseless' first information report against the sisters of the deceased actor and questioned the 'support' extended to her by the Uddhav Thackeray government in Maharashtra, for 'reasons the Shiv Sena knows better'.
Talking to reporters for the first time after the NDA's victory, Kumar, who is set for yet another term in office, said the date for his swearing-in ceremony will be discussed at an 'informal' meeting of all the four NDA constituents on Friday.
No one in Bihar will deny Nitish Kumar's contribution to governance, notes Aditi Phadnis.
However, as the region with the state's highest concentration of Muslims readies for polls on November 7 in the last phase of the elections, it is the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress-Left alliance that draws considerable support from the community amid sporadic voices in Owaisi's support as they weigh their choices.
How Modi retrieves the situation and how he enlists new allies in the next two years will show if the BJP is fighting fit, report Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
The Maharashtra government had opposed an FIR by the Bihar police and a CBI probe in the sensational case.
The 94 constituencies which are going to poll on November 3 are in 17 districts: West Champaran, East Champaran, Sheohar, Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Gopalganj, Siwan, Saran, Vaishali, Samastipur, Begusarai, Khagaria, Bhagalpur, Nalanda and Patna.
A part of the Hajipur Lok Sabha seat, Raghopur assembly segment in Vaishali district will vote in the second phase on November 3. The 31-year-old, the younger son of Lalu Prasad, had taken the electoral plunge from Raghopur in 2015, when he had barely reached the qualifying age of 25 for fighting polls.
The RJD leader, who is the Mahagathbandhan's chief ministerial face, said that if voted to power, providing jobs to unemployed youth would be his topmost priority.
'Log kehte hai desh to humne Modi ko diya hua hai, par pradesh nahi diya hai (we have given Modi the mandate to run the nation, not the state).'
'We can't underestimate future threats.'
Yadav vowed to dislodge the government headed by Nitish Kumar, whom Congress leader Avinash Pandey in his address accused of "apharan" (hijacking) of the mandate in the previous elections.
While the assembly elections are being seen as largely a contest between the NDA and the Grand Alliance, the state has been witness to mushrooming of "morchas" (fronts) which may queer the pitch for the lead players in a tight contest.
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