Noting that it was his government that had recommended a CBI probe into the actor's death, Kumar said the incident saddened both the state and the country.
The maverick MLA came out with the announcement, claiming, as always, that he had "the blessings of Lalu Prasad", at a time when he was left licking his wounds after losing the battle in a tug of war with state RJD chief Jagadanand Singh.
Nitish Kumar has to make an existential choice: Between governance and politics, argues Aditi Phadnis.
Apart from these popular cracker brands, sparkles named after Congress president Sonia Gandhi and bombs named after Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat were also found to be doing good business in the state.
"'So ja bete nahi to Gabbar Singh aa jayega'. Mothers, who have seen the jungle raj days in Bihar, please do tell your children, especially youth, on the polling day to cast their votes carefully, otherwise they (the RJD) may return to power... those who ran a regime of terror and fear," he told a press conference.
Kumar, however, said he did not know whether 1, Anne Marg bunglow was notified as official residence of the chief minister and that the officials alone would be able to tell.
All broken tiles have been replaced with glazed tiles of the choice of the family and the boundary walls have been raised in accordance with the 'Z Plus' security status that the Railway Minister enjoys in view of threat from communal forces.
Tej Pratap and Aishwarya, whose father is a sitting RJD MLA and grandfather Daroga Rai was chief minister in the 1960s, had tied the knot in May at a grand ceremony.
The Election Commission is making sure that the winds of potential change cause no disruption in the counting process.
Old-timers seem not impressed with the idea of dropping from the RJD poster its jailed supremo who is acknowledged, across party lines, as the biggest crowd puller ever seen in Bihar's poitical arena.
Special Judge Arun Bhardwaj also issued a production warrant against Prasad in the case.
'In Bihar, the Dalits are not a consolidated socio-political constituency,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Invoking the imagery of Goddess Sita and her father Janaka, the king of Mithila of which this north Bihar town became the capital later on, Modi said those who used to taunt the BJP over the delay in construction of Ram temple were now forced to applause.
Rabri Devi's lawyer told a Delhi court last week that the former chief minister did not have a passport, and that she has never had one, reports M I Khan.
The ruling coalition won 125 seats in the 243-member state assembly against 110 clinched by the opposition Grand Alliance to pave the way for a fourth successive term for Kumar in office.
Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah on Thursday launched his party's high-tech 'Parivartan Rath' campaign for the upcoming Bihar assembly polls and appealed to people to vote for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance for development of the state and to end the 'jungle raj'
Launching a counteroffensive against the Bharatiya Janata Party for its 'return of jungle raj' remark, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav on Wednesday said if the killing of a youth in a road rage incident symbolised that, then even the national capital was no different.
'Tej Pratap doesn't have votes on his own. But should he want, he can always rock the RJD's boat because of his antics.'
Kumar's comments quoting 16th century poet Rahim were seen as a veiled attack on Lalu.
Saisuresh Sivaswamy tells us what we must know from the election news in the print and television media.
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The Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad in a fodder scam case, in a relief to the politician who is behind the bars for the last two months after being awarded a five-year jail term.
'It is precisely because of the apprehensions about Lalu's revival that the upper castes have started re-thinking their electoral preferences. Out of confusion, they are simply deciding to vote for winnable candidates from their respective castes of any of the three parties -- the BJP, JD-U or RJD. This is what has considerably neutralised the NaMo wave in Bihar and resulted in Nitin Gadkari's remark that "Caste is in the DNA of Biharis". This is why Giriraj Singh, the BJP candidate from Nawada, made provocative statements,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Nitish Kumar's government has proved during these floods that it is a helpless government.'
The man, who once lorded over Bihar, was pushed to the margins after the 2010 assembly elections.
Nitish Kumar's decision to resign as the state chief minister was as dramatic as the time he decided to tie up with old foe Lalu in 2015.
'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.
Bihar! The state goes to the polls next year. Narendra Modi has chosen a Bhumihar, Rajput and Yadav as his ministers from the state.
Joining hands with his arch rival, Lalu Prasad Yadav, paid off for the Bihar chief minister
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.
'A fierce crusader against communalism, George joined hands with majoritarian forces, never to revisit or re-assess his saffron association.' 'He was a Union minister in 1998-2004, a time when people like Graham Staines were lynched in Orissa.' 'On the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, George went on to kind of justify the slashing of pregnant women, by saying in the Lok Sabha that this was nothing new for India.' 'Thus, he was in sharp contrast to what he had himself stood for in the heyday of his political career in the 1970s and 1980s, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'The BJP should realise that a very large number of people -- from the 'perfumed liberals' to the 'illiterate' masses of Bihar -- is trying to tell them that this is not the 'development' they wanted.' 'Stop telling people what to eat, what to wear, what to read, who to love and how not to show dissent.'
'They must take the bull of conservatism within their own ranks by its horns as much as they need to speak out against the fallacies of the non-Hindutva (or 'Muslim-friendly') political forces as well,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
'Nitish Kumar wouldn't have won Bihar without Lalu. He needed a voter base and Lalu has a much bigger voter base than Nitish.'
The 'secularists'are more adept at the politics of intense and alarmingly exaggerated fear-mongering, as this kind of politics provides easy votes of Muslims without making them answerable for the concrete issues of poverty, unemployment, lawlessness, and of basic needs like roads, electricity, etc, which is exactly how Nitish Kumar was defeated in the elections, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Why do sections of Muslims seem to prefer Lalu and Mulayam who symbolise wilful neglect of governance and development? In this election, secularism is less at stake. What is more at stake is the degenerative, cynical, opportunistic, and discredit-worthy misuse of secularism by the non-BJP leaders and their social constituencies,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Consider this image of today's youth in Bihar -- armed with a bike, a smartphone and possibly some illegal arms too, imbibing incessant stream of images from the Internet and television.' 'Some of them would turn into gau bhakts, some would listen with interest the exploits of Salafism, dig deep into the Internet to come out with images which cry vociferously that their respective religions are in danger.'
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