'Lalu is Lalu. His presence in the election campaign will make a difference for the Mahagathbandhan.'
Former Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras, who quit after his Lok Janshakti Party faction was not given any seat by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in Bihar for the Lok Sabha elections, on Saturday announced his party's support to the ruling alliance, ending speculation over his next course of action.
Predictably, many RJD leaders, including its spokesperson Sarika Paswan, shared the video of Kumar who had lambasted the party's president Lalu Prasad and the latter's wife Rabri Devi for their alleged dismal performance as chief ministers of Bihar.
'The party is breaking stereotypes by not inviting senior leaders to become chief ministers.' 'No other party has had the guts to do this.'
A BJP leader in Bihar on Thursday died while taking part in a 'Vidhan Sabha march' against the state's Nitish Kumar government, evoking allegations from senior party leaders that he was "killed in a brutal lathi charge".
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.
Modi spoke to the BJP's longest serving president, who is credited with crafting the party's rise through the 90s when it came to power for the first time as the head of coalition governments under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and congratulated him.
10 vacancies in the Upper House after Rajya Sabha members were elected to the Lok Sabha.
Delhi is set to get its third woman chief minister, after Congress' Sheila Dikshit and Bharatiya Janata Party's Sushma Swaraj, as Aam Aadmi Party leader Atishi has been chosen to succeed Arvind Kejriwal.
Nitish slammed the opposition and expressed confidence that they will be defeated in the next Lok Sabha elections.
'The political situation in the country will depend on the electoral outcome in Maharashtra.'
Ahead of the Madhya Pradesh elections, Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra have arrived in Bhopal as part of the ruling party's programme wherein every legislator will be allotted one assembly seat each that they are supposed to visit to take stock of the ground situation, party leaders said.
The JD-U leader's outbursts met with disapproval from the RJD as well as ally BJP, leaving the party to fend for itself.
Congress President and Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday questioned Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman over the Union Budget and claimed that the plates of all states except Bihar and Andhra Pradesh were empty in the budget allocation.
'To attribute motives to the individual election commissioner or the Election Commission as a group is very unfair.'
JD-U sources conceded that the BJP's "Bihari martyrdom" line will give the coalition an edge or "at least help us combat anti-incumbency if the Opposition makes an issue of Nitish's governance".
Following the party's sweep of assembly elections in three Hindi heartland states against the odds, the BJP's brain trust is now busy game-planning as to how it can improve on its 2019 Lok Sabha election tally of 303 seats.
In the wake of communal violence in West Bengal and Bihar, Sibal had on Sunday questioned the "silence" of Prime Minister Modi over the matter, and said "let not 2024 general elections be the reason" for the violence.
They met at Modi's residence in New Delhi a day after the NDA won a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha election, paving the way for him to take the oath for a third consecutive term, a first for any ruling alliance since 1962.
Rashtriya Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad on Thursday invited former Bihar chief minister Jiten Ram Manjhi, a known detractor of Nitish Kumar, to join the process of uniting parties against the Bharatiya Janata Party for the upcoming assembly polls in Bihar.
The delegation also interacted with the workers and told them not to believe in rumours and fake videos.
'Don't be surprised if the Census forms come with a caste box.' 'I will be surprised if it doesn't. It will be a point conceded to Rahul Gandhi and his allies,' asserts Shekhar Gupta. The BJP machine could take all 3 in its stride, but this election has changed that, notes Shekhar Gupta.
The state police also advised people not to believe in rumours.
Union minister Chirag Paswan, who joined politics after a failed Bollywood debut, has no plans to make a comeback in films and also jokes that he is such a 'bad actor' that even his Lok Sabha colleague and first co-star, Kangana Ranaut, will not agree to share the screen space with him again.
With the reality of coalition politics staring the BJP in its face, this was inevitable, points out Ramesh Menon.
Sanjeev Kumar alias Sanjeev 'Mukhiya', an alleged kingpin behind the NEET paper leak, was not only minting money but wanted to become an MP or MLA.
'You can attack and conspire to weaken us, but you cannot destroy the Congress permanently.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's move to get reservation for women in legislatures promises to shape the political discourse ahead of key state polls and Lok Sabha elections, and a parliamentary approval to the long-contested proposal will be used by the Bharatiya Janata Party to burnish his credentials as a decisive leader.
The Bihar chief minister, who has of late been making news for goof-ups, made the faux pas at an election rally on the outskirts of Patna.
Campaigning for May 13 elections in 96 Lok Sabha constituencies across 10 states and Union territories including all seats in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly elections are also being held concurrently, and Telangana concluded on Saturday evening.
WC star Azad beats state BJP heavyweight Ghosh from Bardhaman-Durgapur constituency
'Laluji personally telephoned several Opposition leaders to attend the meeting.'
'We want to strengthen hands of Modiji and sure that LJP (Ram Vilas) will contest polls as an ally of NDA.'
The crowd at the mosque was larger than usual, unsurprisingly because it happened to be the last "Jumma" (Friday) of the holy month of Ramzan.
Besides the four ministerial berths, the Congress has also sought the post of Speaker of the state assembly, but Kumar is not keen on giving that, sources said.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday asserted that she did not threaten junior doctors at state-run hospitals, who have been continuing cease-work for 21 days now to protest against the alleged rape and murder of a woman medic. Addressing a rally organised by the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad, Banerjee had on Wednesday urged the agitating junior doctors of Bengal to urgently consider returning to duty and said she doesn't want to lodge first information reports (FIRs) against the striking doctors in consideration of their future careers.
While Narendra Modi addresses rally after rally in Bihar, Shatrughan Sinha has been left out of the BJP's campaign.
With challenges such as raising the legal age of marriage for women, combating malnutrition among women and children, and addressing women's safety issues, the new ministers face a formidable agenda.
The credibility of the examination system has also come under question, they said.
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.
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