Efforts to forge unity in the opposition ranks gained momentum on Monday with the Congress asserting that a 'vast majority' of non-Bharatiya Janata Party outfits will meet soon, after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar met its president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi.
Tyagi, the JD-U's political advisor and spokesperson, was replying to queries about the suggestion that followed Kumar's speech at a party rally in Patna on Wednesday.
Kumar had also made it clear that he was in the process of uniting the non-BJP leaders.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Centre's decision to confer Bharat Ratna on his political mentor Karpoori Thakur.
Stepping up the war of words with Narendra Modi, Nitish Kumar on Tuesday said his promise to bestow a special status on Bihar along with a special package was nothing but a 'ploy' to win votes by 'befooling' people.
Leaders of several like-minded opposition parties are likely to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka chief minister-designate Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar on Saturday in Bengaluru.
Wait for a while before he does another somersault... But one thing is reasonably certain -- the twice betrayed BJP may not embrace him again, predicts Virendra Kapoor.
Dominic Xavier wonders whether Bihari women will remember what Nitish Kumar has done for them or whether electorate amnesia will set in.
Nitish also reiterated that he was "not a claimant" for the top post.
The meeting in New Delhi etc is just the BJP being nice to the man who helped it realise its dream by stabbing Uddhav in the back, notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Nitish Kumar has lost his credibility. He is now only a weak ally of the BJP. And he may no longer have a shot at a national role.
Forty-one Border Road Organisation labourers working to clear snow near the high altitude border village of Mana in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district were trapped under an avalanche on Friday.
Unlike the previous visit, where TDP MPs accompanied Naidu to meetings, sources termed the current visit as "low profile", with one-on-one meetings with key Union ministers.
Expressing displeasure over the attack on his cabinet colleague Nitin Nabin by miscreants in neighbouring Jharkhand amid the protests, Kumar on Monday asserted that 'the responsibility of maintaining peace and communal harmony rests with the state government'.
The Bihar CM will have make good on his poll promises of a clean administration, providing piped water, toilets, pucca roads and unemployment allowance
Thackeray said leaders of the Congress and other parties are holding talks with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Telegu Desam Party (TDP) head Chandrababu Naidu to explore the possibility of their entry into the bloc.
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.
'BJP's ultimate ambition is to control Bihar independently.'
As India inches closer towards the general elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has emerged as the most searched chief minister on search giant Google.
The JD-U leader was seen sitting with Tej Pratap and Tejashwi Yadav, the sons of RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Kumar, who heads the Janata Dal-United, moved the motion soon after the House passed a proposal for the removal of Rashtriya Janata Dal's Awadh Bihari Chaudhary as Speaker of the assembly.
Sounding confident of winning the trust vote on February 20, Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi said he would enter the ring as a "wrestler" without bothering about his win or loss.
Facing criticism over his appointment as Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, RJD chief Lalu Prasad's son Tejaswi Yadav on Monday promised to take the state forward on the path of development and asserted that he would have a zero tolerance approach towards corruption.
Meanwhile, hectic activity was seen at 10, Circular Road, the bungalow allotted to party president Lalu Prasad's wife Rabri Devi who shares the house with her husband and younger son Tejashwi Yadav, the deputy CM.
Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday asserted that 'something major' will take place, after Lok Sabha results are out, in Bihar where Chief Minister Nitish Kumar seemed to be 'not going along well' with ally Bharatiya Janata Party.
Party believes Nitish-Lalu alliance beatable, but wary of self goals.
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.
Yadav, who returned from the national capital on Thursday after a trip that lasted three days, asserted that there was "nothing new" in the summons, even as he alleged that the central agencies were acting as per the directions of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
A Janata Dal-United leader was allegedly murdered in Bihar's Nalanda district in the early hours of Monday, the police said.
Recalling his association with Jaitley, the CM said that "I had very close association with Arun Jailey ji since 1998 when I got the opportunity to work in Atal Bihari Vajpayee government... I am deeply hurt with passing away of Arun Jaitley ji."
Even until Monday, some senior BJP leaders, including those from Bihar, were of the view that the JD-U leader was engaging in brinkmanship to pressure his bigger partner to be more accommodative.
"Between 1990 and 2005, only 95,000 people were given jobs. In our administration, over 6 lakh jobs were given and besides this many others were enrolled in other services," Nitish Kumar said.
According to the police headquarters in Patna, "more than a dozen police personnel and power department employees" sustained injuries in the incident that took place barely "100 meters away from Barsoi police station".
The Nitish Kumar government in Bihar came under fresh attack on Monday from state Bharatiya Janata Party president Sanjay Jaiswal whose party seems annoyed with junior ally Janata Dal-United's shrill demands for special assistance from the Centre.
When pressed further, as to whether the doors were still open for the former ally, Prasad, who has known Kumar since their days as student leaders in the 1970s, replied "these are always open (khula hi rahta hai)".
'The main characteristic of Bihar politics is that it has always affected Delhi.'
'Our approach is forward-looking. The central leadership wants young leaders to lead the charge now. This will also send a clear signal that lapses will not be tolerated. We are targeting beyond 2025.' Satyavrat Mishra reports.
Union ministers Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian were elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha Tuesday along with senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi and former minister Upendra Kushwaha.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday rejected claims by Bharatiya Janata Party MP and his former deputy chief minister Sushil Modi that the Janata Dal-United had split with the National Democratic Alliance as the chief minister was not made the Vice President.
Shatrughan Sinha, MP and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader, on Saturday met Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who he described as "guardian of the state", generating speculation in political circles which he downplayed.
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