JD-U MP Harivansh filed his nomination as the ruling NDA candidate to the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman's post and is likely to be elected, even as the Opposition is working to field a joint candidate against him to force a contest.
Chirag Paswan is young. He is articulate. He has no political baggage. All he needs is the blessing of Chanakya, observes Asmita Bihari.
The LJP will also be given a Rajya Sabha berth and Paswan is likely to be its candidate.
It is an ode to his politics that believed in building bridges across social or political divides that he was one of the most liked state leaders among the upper castes even as he drew his support mostly from Dalits, a group which at times shared antagonistic relations with the more prosperous communities due to a number of social and political reasons.
The 19-year-old partnership ended after the ruling party refused to accede to the ally's demand for 17 of 81 seats.
"If the current Chief Minister again wins this election by mistake then our state will lose. Our state will again stand on the verge of getting ruined. "I wonder how he promotes casteism. It is not appropriate to imagine the development of Bihar under the leadership of a person who promotes communalism," Paswan said while launching the party's manifesto for the Bihar assembly polls.
Eight other ministers from the BJP and its alliance partners also took oath along with the chief minister.
LJP sources said the BJP's defeat in the five state polls have ignited a rethink in the party over its ties with the saffron party.
Both MLAs are sitting BJP MLAs.
More than two crore voters in Bihar will decide the fate of 1,066 candidates on Wednesday across 71 assembly segments in the first phase of elections.
Taking a swipe at the 'Modi wave' before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he said, "The Sena has seen enough 'waves' in its journey."
He claimed that Tej Pratap kept egging on his henchmen while Ramraj was being humiliated and that he even got the entire episode videographed.
Rebel Lok Janshakti Party MP Pashupati Kumar Paras appeared to have scored a point on Thursday when he was unanimously elected as the new national president even as the faction headed by his cornered nephew Chirag Paswan dug in its heels and vowed to teach the 'traitors' a lesson.
M Thambidurai of the All India Dravida Munetra Kazhagam is set to be elected unopposed as Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha after all major parties, including Congress, extended support to his andidature.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its National Democratic Alliance partners - the Janata Dal-United and Lok Janshakti Party -- on Monday formally announced their alliance for the Delhi assembly polls, asserting that it will send a "strong" political message across the country.
Das lost his seat to Independent candidate Saryu Roy by over 15000 votes. He said the BJP's failure to cling on to the alliance with AJSU is the reason for its loss.
"Every person who wants development in Bihar, wants unemployment and corruption to end in the state and wants migration to stop is voting for the candidates of BJP and LJP. "This time the people have voted for change and development. The feedback I am getting from my party candidates and workers clearly indicates that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar won't be able to retain his position after November 10. "BJP-LJP will form a new government in Bihar," Paswan said.
The invite to Paswan from the BJP assumes significance as this made it clear that the LJP remains a member of the NDA despite walking out of the alliance in Bihar during the state assembly polls.
Amid reports of Nitish Kumar shifting to Delhi as Rajya Sabha member to play a bigger role in uniting parties against the Bharatiya Janata Party, Bihar Janata Dal-United President Basistha Narayan Singh on Saturday dismissed any such possibility terming the reports as "imaginary."
Presence of Fadnavis will be keenly watched in view of recent tug of war between his home state Maharashtra and Bihar over death of Sushant Singh Rajput, a Patna born Bollywood actor.
Names of BJP veterans like L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi also do not figure in the list.
The Nitish Kumar government has the support of 132 MLAs.
Expelled Janata Dal-United Member of Parliament Sabir Ali on Friday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and praised Narendra Modi, saying the Gujarat chief minister is the "most capable" person to lead the country forward.
Bharatiya Janshakti chief Uma Bharti on Friday announced withdrawal of her party candidates from Uttar Pradesh elections following Vishwa Hindu Parishad's call to make Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kalyan Singh chief minister.
Anti-incumbency against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's 15-year-old rule in Bihar is stronger that what Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD regime faced in 2005, LJP president Chirag Paswan said on Monday, asserting that he walked out of the ruling alliance in the state so as not to have any 'guilt' of playing a role in continuation of the current dispensation.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has decided to contest 160 of the 243 assembly seats in the upcoming polls, leaving 83 other seats to its three allies.
"Leaders like Vajpayee, Advani treated me with respect," the JD-U leader said.
Sources later said differences between the two parties have been resolved.
Over 400 incumbent Lok Sabha members including Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Lal Krishna Advani and Rajnath Singh have not yet declared their assets and liability details, according to an RTI reply.
Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday filed his nomination papers from the Hajipur parliamentary constituency in Bihar, and claimed that he would break his own Guinness World Record for winning a parliamentary election with the highest margin.
Paswan, who has chosen to plough a lonely furrow in the ongoing assembly elections, reiterated that the LJP was and will remain loyal towards the BJP, which was staring at the spectre of yet another "paltimaar" (volte face) by the JD-U president.
The RSS wants three nominees inducted: Tejaswi Surya, the young BJP MP from Bengaluru South, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, a Rajya Sabha member, and former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
Two Central Reserve Police Force jawans were killed and three others injured when Maoists triggered an explosive, when they were on way to a polling station in Jamui parliamentary constituency of Bihar early morning, the police said.
Political observers are keen to see if the BJP will now be guided by its more firmly entrenched ideological dominance in picking a face solidly identified with its core planks, or if it will choose a person tilted more to its electoral calculations. Or, whether its pick will be an ode to its core supporters or a outreach to relatively new groups of votaries.
Bihar assembly elections which are to be announced shortly are expected to be five-phased and around 50,000 paramilitary personnel will be deployed in each phase to ensure peaceful polling.
Kushwaha described the meeting as a courtesy call.
Addressing a press conference barely a few hours before the campaign for the final phase of the elections came to a close, Paswan reiterated that the LJP will do well despite having gone solo in the elections and asserted, "We will help the BJP form the next government."
The party has said resources should now be focussed on curbing the COVID-19 crisis and tackling floods in the state and not holding the polls.
Top leaders of political parties were on Thursday briefed by the government about the surgical strike carried out by the army on terror launching pads across the Line of Control to foil plans of terrorists to target some Indian towns.
The actor-turned-politician whose criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has grown progressively sharper, didn't figure on the BJP's list of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls.
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