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.
The Janata Dal-United supremo, however, also appeared annoyed with parliamentary board chief Upendra Kushwaha who had recently jumped the gun with the insinuation that the RJD could be trying to 'further the Bharatiya Janata Party's agenda' by refraining from taking action against the minister.
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.
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.
Accompanied by his son Santosh Suman, Manjhi met Shah at his residence in New Delhi.
The Congress, which had fought nine, lost all but managed to retain Kishanganj.
Despite the BJP emerging as the largest party in the ruling alliance with 74 seats, 31 more than the JDU, the top leadership of the saffron party, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has emphatically endorsed Kumar as the next chief minister.
The BJP's Bihar unit responded to the tweet saying, "The first picture is your future and the second is of India. Understood?"
'If people don't see you, they might be hesitant, but once they see you, they are confident that this is the person they will vote for,' says political debutant Shambhavi Choudhury, 25, alumnus of the Lady Sriram College and the Delhi School of Economics.
'The main characteristic of Bihar politics is that it has always affected Delhi.'
Twenty-three per cent or 244 candidates have declared serious criminal cases against themselves, it said. Serious criminal cases are non-bailable offences with over five years of imprisonment.
Leave alone taking forward the seat-sharing talks with the existing and probable allies, the Mahagathbandhan remains an amorphous entity weeks before the first phase of polling on October 28, a situation that will make the rival NDA camp, which in any case looks sitting pretty, all the more happier.
The 94 constituencies which are going to poll on November 3 are in 17 districts: West Champaran, East Champaran, Sheohar, Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Gopalganj, Siwan, Saran, Vaishali, Samastipur, Begusarai, Khagaria, Bhagalpur, Nalanda and Patna.
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".
Facing apparent defeat, Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi resigned on Friday.
The Congress party is in talks with various political parties to form a secular alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Bihar assembly polls, its spokesman Rajeev Gowda said on Monday.
The state polls are due in October-November.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
Bihar Assembly Deputy Speaker Maheshwar Hazari on Wednesday accused outgoing Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha of having "insulted Dalits" by denying him the opportunity to conduct proceedings of the House after stepping down.
This is the first time, since the JDU-BJP alliance came to power in 2005, that the saffron party has staked claim for the speakers post.
With the reality of coalition politics staring the BJP in its face, this was inevitable, points out Ramesh Menon.
'Nitish Kumar's newly-formed alliance with BJP would unravel before the 2025 assembly polls in Bihar'
"It was a social event and we did not talk politics there," he said on his interaction with Modi.
Talking to reporters in Patna, the former Union minister asserted that he would happily function as 'an ordinary party worker, worth five rupees', if the JD-U leadership was assumed by 'anybody from among the Luv Kush Samaj (Kurmis and Koeris) or the EBCs whose aspirations have been the party's driving force'.
Kamat is the second minister in Nitish Kumar's cabinet to succumb to the infection this week.
Sharing Yadav's tweet, Giriraj Singh, who has often been critical of Kumar, on Wednesday said, "The snake has entered your home."
The JD-U leader rubbished speculations that he was maintaining an eloquent silence on the issue because of anxieties about tarnishing his own image for probity by aligning with "tainted" politicians and could even be thinking of breaking away with the "Mahagathbandhan", which besides RJD, also includes Congress and the Left.
There is a view that heavyweight portfolios like home, finance, defence and external affairs besides education and culture, two ministries with strong ideological hues, will be kept by the BJP, while its allies can get anywhere between five to eight cabinet berths.
'It is precisely because of the apprehensions about Lalu's revival that the upper castes have started re-thinking their electoral preferences. Out of confusion, they are simply deciding to vote for winnable candidates from their respective castes of any of the three parties -- the BJP, JD-U or RJD. This is what has considerably neutralised the NaMo wave in Bihar and resulted in Nitin Gadkari's remark that "Caste is in the DNA of Biharis". This is why Giriraj Singh, the BJP candidate from Nawada, made provocative statements,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Without naming Chirag Paswan, the legislators are reported to have recalled the actions of the former Lok Janshakti Party chief during the 2020 state assembly polls while warning the CM that if they were not alert, it would not be good for the party.
The National Democratic Alliance in Bihar which so far had BJP, JD-U and the LJP as its constituents will now have another dalit-centric party HAM as a member.
'My quest to be a meaningful participant in democracy & help shape pro-people policy led to a 10yr rollercoaster ride! As I turn the page, time to go to the Real Masters, THE PEOPLE, to better understand the issues & the path to Peoples Good Governance,' Kishor said in a tweet.
Bihar is no stranger to being at the centre of a tectonic shift in national politics fuelled by turbulent regional forces.
New faces may, however, be inducted in the council of ministers from the allies Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, he told reporters during his visit to Madhubani on Wednesday as part of his 'Samadhan Yatra'.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Wednesday asserted that it was "not scared of ED and CBI" following its break-up with the Bharatiya Janata Party, which rules the Centre and is often accused by the opposition of misusing investigating agencies.
This is the fifth time that Nitish will be the chief minister of Bihar and this will be his third consecutive term.
Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar will take oath as chief minister of Bihar on February 22, ending weeks of political uncertainty in the state.
Sources said Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is 'satisfied' with the deputy CM's explanation.
A day after the by-election results in Bihar, though leaders of the Rahtriya Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed victory after the RJD and BJP retained the Mokama and Gopalganj assembly seats respectively, the fact that both seats were won with a reduced margin indicates that there is nothing to celebrate for either party.
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