'Lalu doesn't mind the BJP but is not ready for a Muslim CM. He wants only Rabri Devi,' says Ram Vilas Paswan.
Refusing renomination to 14 more sitting MLAs, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday night came out with its second list of 99 party candidates for Bihar assembly polls.
'It is not his doing, but Rahul Gandhi is forced by circumstances.' 'In taking political decisions, everything has to get his clearance.'
'For Nitish Kumar the message is to be democratic. With the support of the BJP, he had suppressed criticism in Bihar. He would also need to change his highly authoritarian way of governance.' 'The Grand Alliance, given the decisive mandate in its favour, cannot afford to fail the people. They have a duty to make it a model for the rest of India,' says Apoorvanand.
Counting of votes in the high-stakes close-to-call Bihar assembly elections, billed as a hot battle between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, will take place on Sunday.
'You can attack and conspire to weaken us, but you cannot destroy the Congress permanently.'
With the Congress recording its worst performance in last ten years in this assembly election in Bihar, state party chief Mehboob Ali Kaiser has decided to quit his post owning "moral responsibility" for the defeat.
The next meeting of opposition parties will be held in Bengaluru on July 17 and 18, the Congress announced on Monday, and asserted their resolve to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party has been strengthened by the 'Mumbai operations' of the 'BJP washing machine'.
Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras on Saturday said he will contest the next Lok Sabha polls from Hajipur, rebuffing his nephew Chirag Paswan who has staked claim on late father Ram Vilas Paswan's constituency.
A statement to this effect was made in Patna by RCP Singh, a close aide of Kumar, amid buzz on cabinet expansion at the Centre.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday ducked queries about exit polls predicting wins, in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly polls, for his former ally Bharatiya Janata Party which he has vowed to defeat with the help of a united opposition in the next general elections.
The party managed only 52 seats on its own and many of its top leadership, including Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Jyotiraditya Scindia were defeated in the polls.
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.
The remarks by the BJP leaders came as 17 opposition parties resolved to fight the 2024 Lok Sabha elections unitedly to defeat the saffron party and work with flexibility by setting aside their differences. They dubbed the planned alliance as "unholy and opportunistic".
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday said that the defeat of Janata Dal-United in Maharajganj bypoll has no bearing on the National Democratic Alliance.
Out of the 26 seats where Modi addressed election rallies, the BJP won only 10.
Sources said senior leaders of the party have been told to reach out to other leaders of the alliance and talks with some parties have begun.
Did Nitish Kumar want to return to the Mahagathbandhan 6 months after aligning with the BJP?
For now, the BJP's strategy for Khushbu seems to be one of denial -- denying the rival Congress in the state and also at the national-level a Muslim voice acceptable to Hindu audiences and TV news-watchers. This is much less than the induction of DMK veterans like Duraiswamy and Selvam, who still have a greater chances of winning assembly seats,, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday cited Delhi's alleged 'liquor scam' to accuse Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao of being under 'remote control' of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Political strategist-turned-activist Prashant Kishor on Thursday took a fresh jibe at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his former mentor, reiterating that the latter may ditch the 'Mahagathbandhan' and return to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.
The Congress would also take inspiration from history as it was from Karnataka that an embattled Indira Gandhi had revived her dwindling political future by winning a Lok Sabha bypoll from Chikmagalur.
Tyagi, however, added his party was imposing no condition on the BJP over the issue of Cabinet berths.
Shukla claimed that the current Nitish Kumar-led dispensation would be ousted after the elections and people have started protesting against the ruling alliance leaders in public meetings.
Training his guns at the Congress, Modi accused the opposition party of having always made false promises of poverty eradication, farm loan waiver and one rank-one pension for retired servicemen.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Wednesday described as "high indiscipline" and "arbitrary" the support extended by its Nagaland unit to the newly formed government in that state where the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance returned to power.
All the winners in the assembly bypolls were from the respective ruling parties.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad announced in Patna on Sunday that the merger of the six parties of the erstwhile Janata Parivar was certain and necessary to stop and defeat the communally inclined BJP.
While the BJP and the Congress have always supported the bill, opposition by other parties and demands from some for quota for backward classes within the women's quota have been key sticking points.
The latest development comes a day after the BJP decided to support Nitish Kumar's human chain for prohibition next week.
BJP leaders said the party will take corrective measures, while its long-time ally Shiv Sena appeared taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The opposition INDIA alliance on Friday finalised a 13-member committee.
'Whatever tricks the BJP may play, it will not be able to stop JD-U from becoming a national party by 2023'
'The Modi-Shah duo won't leave the war zone without putting up a tough fight.' 'Modi's slogan for 2019 could well be, "I have done much. Give me one more chance to do even more".' '2019 will be tough for the BJP.' 'But it will be even tougher for the Opposition -- united or otherwise,' says R Rajagopalan.
'With vendetta politics as its main plank, the BJP will be looking out for every opportunity to destabilise this Mahagatbandhan government.'
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.
Kumar made the remark while replying to questions in Patna, from journalists, about the BJP's decision taken at its two-day state executive meeting that concluded in Darbhanga on the previous day.
The BJP has dropped C T Ravi, a leader from Karnataka, Dilip Saikia, a Lok Sabha MP from Assam, as its general secretaries, and Vinod Sonkar, Harish Dwivedi, both Lok Sabha MPs from Uttar Pradesh, and Sunil Deodhar as secretaries.
In Bihar, Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad have come a long way from being bitter rivals for over two decades to friends with benefits. Their grand alliance along with the Congress, has won them six of the 10 assembly seats in the by-elections on Monday.
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