Congress has indicated it won't settle for less than 50 seats in any non-BJP alliance, unlikely if a JD(United)-RJD deal does take place.
All the officials, suspended with immediate effect, have been charged with "failure to take adequate legal action" with regard to "assault.
The Janata Dal-United leader maintained that having taken the initiative to bring parties opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party, he desired nothing for himself but admitted having stressed at the meeting the need to expedite seat-sharing arrangements.
The Nationalist Congress Party on Saturday pledged unconditional support to the Janata Dal-United-Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress alliance for the August 21 bypoll to 10 assembly seats in Bihar to keep the Bharatiya Janaat Party away from power.
Rahul Gandhi has spoken to Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav about the Begusarai seat, but the CPI is unwilling to give up the seat.
The order that was passed less than a week ahead of the first phase of polls scheduled on October 10 throws a spanner in the election process.
Both MLAs are sitting BJP MLAs.
Kumar had also made it clear that he was in the process of uniting the non-BJP leaders.
Union minister RCP Singh, who was recently denied another term in the Rajya Sabha by the Janata Dal-United he formerly headed, should "heed the message" and resign from the cabinet, a key political aide of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has said.
The JD-U also accused the ruling BJP of having "authoritarian" tendencies and destabilising non-BJP governments in several states, including Delhi and Jharkhand besides Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra earlier.
"We were called by Nitish Kumar, but this morning we read in a newspaper that he has raised the issue of prime ministership. Our national leaders can only speak on this issue and we are not authorised to discuss it. So, there was no point in meeting the Chief Minister," BJP leader and NDA convenor in Bihar Nand Kishore Yadav said.
Yadav, 31, apparently referring to the age of the 69-year-old chief minister and said that he has got tired due to which he gives up when faced with a difficult situation -- be it the coronavirus pandemic or Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) outbreak in Muzaffarpur.
The Union home minister recalled that the BJP had won far greater number of seats in the last assembly polls than the JD(U) but Prime Minister Narendra Modi kept up his promise to back Kumar for another term in office.
RJD-JD-U leaders believe Dhirendra Krishna Shastri's visit is part of the BJP's 2024 poll strategy.
The JD-U has 115 MLAs in the 243-member assembly, most of who are reportedly with Nitish
The focus now shifts to November 10 counting of votes.
'They were as late as June 2023 and they did not follow it up with concrete measures immediately in terms of a secretariat or common minimum programme, working group or seat sharing etc.' 'They continued to have periodic meetings after a gap of weeks where they had tasty dinner and coffee, but beside that they did nothing else.'
Janata Dal-United MLC Manorama Devi faced an arrest warrant on Wednesday for violating prohibition laws and allegedly harbouring her fugitive son.
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.
Speculations are rife about a tie-up between the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Janata Dal- United after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar resigned following the severe drubbing his party suffered at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP's quest for dominance over the states political scene, evident from a seat-sharing deal as part of which it clinched nearly as many constituencies as the Janata Dal-United its senior partner so far- resonated during the election campaign.
The CBI has said the mall belongs to Yadav who has made investment in the project through a company.
The performance of Janata Dal-United has down compared its performance in the 2015 elections and the ruling party could not win even half of the number of seats it contested in this election.
The CM will either force Tejashwi to resign, or tender a resignation himself to put pressure on the RJD.
Expelled Janata Dal-United leader and former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Friday launched a new party -- Hindustani Awam Morcha -- to counter the Janata Parivar. The party will contest alone all the 243 seats in Bihar polls scheduled for later this year.
'Lalu is Lalu. His presence in the election campaign will make a difference for the Mahagathbandhan.'
Sunday's denial of Rajya Sabha ticket to Union minister indicates that an end game to the JD-U-BJP rift may be in sight.
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.
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.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said R C P Singh, whom his Janata Dal-United has denied another term in the Rajya Sabha, does not need to resign as a Union minister ahead of the expiry of his Rajya Sabha tenure.
Bihar CM Jitan Ram Manjhi is set to meet PM Narendra Modi while attending the NITI Aayog meetings.
Lalu Prasad and his Muslim-Yadav line has completely gone off track.
JD-U leaders contend that R C P Singh may have misled the BJP leadership into believing that Nitish Kumar was ready for a smaller share in power at the Centre.
Five days before the Big Opposition rally in Patna, one of the Mahagathbandhan's allies will walk out of the ruling alliance.
Kushwaha was referring to 'Luv Kush' rally in Patna, a veritable gathering of Kurmis and Koeris upset with supposed hegemony of numerically powerful Yadavs which Prasad, then helming Bihar, was seen as embodying.
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
Former Janata Dal-United president R C P Singh joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday in the presence of Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, after which he accused Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, once his mentor, of compromising with crime and corruption in his pursuit of "kursi" (chair).
In the tweet, Yadav had claimed that the result in the assembly segment of Araria district proved that Kumar owed the success of his party in 2015 assembly polls to the alliance with the RJD and not the other way round.
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.
In a shot in the arm for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar, Chirag Paswan on Sunday cast aside his ambivalence and announced that he will campaign for the saffron party in bypolls to two assembly segments in the state.
