The former Deputy chief minister made the sensational assertion on his twitter handle, sharing a mobile number which, he claimed, Prasad was having access to despite serving sentences in fodder scam cases.
The Bihar assembly election results appeared to belie predictions made by most exit polls which had given a clear edge to the Rashtriya Janata Dal-led Mahagathbandhan.
Veteran doctor and educationist from Karnataka Belle Monappa Hegde and archaeology legend B B Lal were also given the Padma Vibhushan awards.
The Union minister complained of breathlessness.
Uncertainty shadows the composition of the two main political alliances in Bihar with several parties still exploring their choices as the Election Commission on Friday announced the schedule for the assembly polls.
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.
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.
Many eyebrows were raised in Bihar on Monday as news broke of a meeting between Communist Party of India's rising star Kanhaiya Kumar and Ashok Choudhary, a minister and key aide of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
"The era of 'lalten' is gone. In the last six years consumption of electricity has increased 3 fold in Bihar," PM Modi said. "Voters of Bihar have taken a resolve that they won't let those who have a history of making the state 'Bimaru' come near them," he added.
A powerful lobby of BJP leaders -- mostly from the upper castes -- want to give no more than 70-80 assembly seats to its three allies.
The final phase of polling on Saturday will cover 78 constituencies spread across 19 north Bihar districts.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the tragic loss of lives in the fire.
Accompanied by Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala and other leaders of the Grand Alliance, Yadav made a scathing attack on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi, asking who gave permission to the Munger police to act like 'General Dyer'.
The state polls are due in October-November.
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.
The focus now shifts to November 10 counting of votes.
About 2.34 crore voters, spread across 78 assembly segments of the 243-strong assembly, will decide the fates of 1,204 candidates, including the Speaker and 12 members of the state cabinet.
The LJP will also be given a Rajya Sabha berth and Paswan is likely to be its candidate.
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.
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.
No one in Bihar will deny Nitish Kumar's contribution to governance, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Her speech was laced with Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit and even Tamil verses.
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
Mahindra is desperate for a best-seller in the compact SUV space, on which it missed the bus
Chirag Gupta, who trades in futures & options, had made a profit of Rs 6 lakh, but...
Anwar, an AICC general secretary, came out with a flurry of tweets calling for 'urgent and deep introspection' over the debacle of the party, the second largest constituent of the opposition coalition, which contested as many as 70 seats but returned with a tally of just 19.
While the assembly elections are being seen as largely a contest between the NDA and the Grand Alliance, the state has been witness to mushrooming of "morchas" (fronts) which may queer the pitch for the lead players in a tight contest.
Product has been launched in Uttar Pradesh due to its large geography and rural household base.
"Nobody is above law. With the Supreme Court giving its judgment, it is not right to make a political comment," the Rajya Sabha member said. Asked if the verdict was a setback to the Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra government, Raut said, "Such things do happen in legal battles."
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.
'Ram Mukherjee was kind, gentle and attentive. He knew his job even though Hum Hindustani was his directorial debut.'
A boy from Rajkot has become the youngest student to equal the world record of obtaining full 1,000 marks in an online computer exam conducted by United States-based multinational Microsoft Corp.
Indian forces are doing what they have to do to protect the country, whether it is in terms of deployment, action or counter-action, Modi told political leaders.
A round-up of Day 1 of the Ranji Trophy matches played on Thursday.
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.
Given how everything has played out, Mehul Choksi, now 62, achieved all that he wanted but for all the wrong reasons, says Pavan Lall.
There are also over 10 million voters in the 18-29 age bracket. Winning them over could be Nitish Kumar's biggest challenge, reports Aditi Phadnis.
A round-up of results from the Ranji Trophy matches played on Sunday.
The Bihar CM has made a sagacious attempt to consolidate his extremely backward castes (EBC) support base while trying to make a dent into RJD's Muslim-Yadav combine.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances