Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Saturday maintained that 'there is no confusion' among the 'Mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) partners in Bihar.
Nitish Kumar wants to assure the BJP leadership that he will continue to be a part of the NDA. But he also wants to secure a larger number of seats for his party in the 2025 assembly elections in Bihar.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Wednesday described as "high indiscipline" and "arbitrary" the support extended by its Nagaland unit to the newly formed government in that state where the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance returned to power.
Kumar, who is now heading an alliance government in Bihar which includes the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress and the Left, has reached out to leaders like Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, all of whom are opposed to the BJP but not very comfortable with the grand old party either.
What some of our leaders were up to on Tuesday and Wednesday.
JD-U chief whip Shravan Kumar said those defying the whip "will lose their membership" even as he maintained that it was a "routine exercise that takes place ahead of every assembly session".
A political activist in Bihar on Thursday put up a poster announcing his resignation from 'all posts in the Bharatiya Janata Party' in protest against the ethnic strife in Manipur.
Union minister Giriraj Singh on Saturday claimed that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United and its ally Rashtriya Janata Dal, founded and headed by Lalu Prasad Yadav, were heading for a merger.
"Look at the devastation wrought by Covid in Pakistan and elsewhere. We were saved by Modi's vaccine and his deft handling of the economy," Ram Surat Rai said.
Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Sunday exuded confidence that its national president, who was sworn in as Bihar CM for a record ninth time after forming a new government with the Bharatiya Janata Party, will win Monday's trust vote.
The NDA has retained Bihar with a wafer-thin majority of 125 seats in the 243-member assembly, paving the way for a fourth term for CM Nitish Kumar.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
Opposition parties will hold the next meeting of their 26-member INDIA coalition in Mumbai on August 25 and 26, sources said on Thursday.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com does a deep dive into four elections when Narendra Modi resorted to anti-Muslim fervour and points out that Hindu-Muslim politics does not necessarily mean victory for the BJP.
The central agency which is often accused, by parties opposed to the BJP, of having become a political instrument in the hands of the party ruling the Centre, has reopened inquiry into a case against Prasad which it had closed last year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
Chosen for the country's highest civilian award Bharat Ratna a day ahead of his birth anniversary, Karpoori Thakur has been the veritable 'Jan Nayak' or people's hero of politics in Bihar, whose legacy parties cutting across ideologies seek to claim.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Monday announced its low-profile top office-bearer Anil Hegde as its candidate for the by-election to a Rajya Sabha seat which has been necessitated by the death of multiple-term MP, King Mahendra.
Announcing that a district-wide bandh was being organised in protest against the killing, Chaudhary said that if no headway is made in the investigation within 48 hours, there will be a state-wide stir.
Yadav came out with a video statement, nearly seven minutes long, fulminating against a news portal which had carried a report about his divorce case, apparently presenting him in a poor light.
"This also shows that the ruling dispensation's exasperation (baukhlahat) and desperation (hataasha). But the people of the country are smart enough and they (the BJP) will be held to account (hisab kar diya jaaega) at the appropriate time", said the close aide of the Bihar CM, who had quit the NDA last year and has since become a strong votary of opposition unity.
Party sources are tight-lipped about the fate of Tyagi, who is a trusted aide of Kumar, the party's supreme leader, but has reportedly often left the latter embarrassed by going public on issues without waiting for a nod from the boss.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Tuesday took out processions across the state, urging people to be on guard against the Bharatiya Janata Party's alleged politics of communalism.
'People understand Hitlershahi, tanashahi and now Modishahi.'
'I declined the generous offer of Congress to join the party as part of the EAG and take responsibility for the elections. In my humble opinion, more than me the party needs leadership and collective will to fix the deep rooted structural problems through transformational reforms,' Kishor said in a tweet.
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.
Suman, who held the SC and ST welfare portfolio, is the national president of HAM founded by his father Jitan Ram Manjhi, a former chief minister.
He has served as a minister in all the previous National Democratic Alliance governments in Bihar. He was the minister for the road construction department in the last government.
He pointed out that "politicians should ensure that they are not spreading linguistic terror, further they should make limited comments only."
The judge also asked why the official got suspended on his latest assignment and the deponent said he was caught by the vigilance department.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav also have cases registered against them.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Friday made a fresh plea to the Narendra Modi government at the Centre for an immediate review of the Agnipath scheme, and assure protesting youngsters that their future will not be adversely affected by the new recruitment policy in the armed forces.
The party's state unit president Jagadanand Singh announced the names of Mohd Qari Sohaib, Munni Rajak and Ashok Kumar Pandey.
The 17-year-old alliance between Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United and the Bharatiya Janaya Party is over. Here is how political parties reacted to the break up.
Activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad burnt an effigy of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Patna on Friday evening to protest the transfer of 224.02 acres of land to Aligarh Muslim University by the state government for establishing the AMU Kishanganj Centre.
It was a day of mayhem for the main opposition party as S M Qamar Alam, a national general secretary of the RJD, walked to the chamber of Vidhan Parishad Acting chairman Awadhesh Narain Singh along with four others to tender their resignation. The other MLCs who resigned are Sanjay Prasad, Radha Charan Seth, Ranvijay Kumar Singh and Dlip Rai.
Barring a few exceptions, most known criminal-politicians and their wives, who contested the Bihar assembly polls emerged winners on Wednesday. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United,and its ally Bharatiya Janata Party, top the list of parties with poll winners who have a criminal background.
Among the major political parties, chief minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United is contesting in 35 of the 71 seats, followed by its ally Bharatiya Janata Party (29), while the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal has fielded its candidates in 42 and its coalition partner Congress is in the fray in 20 assembly segments.
JD-U national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan, who addressed a press conference in Patna, however, dismissed queries about Kumar's absence at the NITI Aayog meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the terse remark 'you should ask the chief minister'.
This is the third election in Bihar in the last five years. And Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United -Bharatiya Janata Party combine has been going from strength to strength: From 75 seats in February 2005 to 146 in October that year to more than 200 this time.
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