Lalu Prasad's eldest daughter Misa Bharti, a Rajya Sabha MP, and elder son Tej Pratap Yadav have been omitted from RJD's star campaigners' list released on Thursday for the upcoming by-elections to a couple of assembly seats in Bihar, a development seen as an attempt to push them to the margins in an intra-family feud to control the single largest party in the state assembly.
Madhaw Anand, the party's principal national general secretary and chief spokesperson, resigned from the posts as well as the primary membership stating that the party ran the risk of being "finished" on account of the "inconsequential" move.
After a dream debut seven years ago when he was sworn in as deputy chief minister after being elected MLA for the first time was followed by a slump in his political fortunes, Tejashwi Yadav has finally come back to center-stage as the kingmaker and deputy to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
Having emerged as a senior partner of the National Democratic Alliance in Bihar for the first time in nearly two decades, the Bharatiya Janata Party finally seems to have come out of the shadow of its allies in the state but new alliance arithmetic has dragged down their overall vote share since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Virtually addressing party workers and voters of 11 assembly constituencies that will go to vote in the first phase on October 28, Kumar highlighted the achievements of his governments during his three terms as CM since 2005, and compared those with the work done during the 15-year rule before that.
The Nitish Kumar government has the support of 132 MLAs.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said that the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who at a point was fighting against 'jungle raj' (lawlessness) in Bihar, is now sitting in the lap of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and aiding it.
The JD-U also used the meeting to call for a joint Opposition candidate for the election to the President's post and urged Gandhi to take the lead in the matter.
Noting that it was his government that had recommended a CBI probe into the actor's death, Kumar said the incident saddened both the state and the country.
Most television channels, including NDTV, were giving NDA a thumbs up, when it was the Grand Alliance that was winning the battle on the ground.
Prasad can still influence the power play in Patna if not change it, reports Satyavrat Mishra.
Hundreds of RSS cadres are helping the Saffron party counter Lalu-Nitish's campaign on the reservation issue in Bihar polls, observes M I Khan
Kumar, who chose not to react when the 31-year-old Rashtriya Janata Dal leader made a series of personal attacks and allegations in his nearly an hour-long speech, erupted in anger when the latter sought to interject during a statement made by Janata Dal-United leader and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary.
After days of tough posturing between leadership of the Janata Dal-United and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar on the issue of alliance for the assembly elections, action has now shifted to the national capital, where top leaders from both the parties will meet to thrash out the differences.
Ravi Shankar Prasad in Patna Sahib, Ram Kripal Yadav in Pataliputra, R K Singh in Arrah and Ashwani Choubey in Buxar are all having a tough time.
The Bharatiya Janata Party claims it has over six lakh committed workers in Bihar, a team of 10 deployed for each of the 62,200 polling booths.
Searches are being conducted on Friday at 12 locations including Delhi, Patna, Ranchi, Puri and Gurgaon.
A part of the Hajipur Lok Sabha seat, Raghopur assembly segment in Vaishali district will vote in the second phase on November 3. The 31-year-old, the younger son of Lalu Prasad, had taken the electoral plunge from Raghopur in 2015, when he had barely reached the qualifying age of 25 for fighting polls.
Pappu added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should intervene to check and control violence against Bihari migrants in Manipur.
Did Nitish Kumar want to return to the Mahagathbandhan 6 months after aligning with the BJP?
'Nitish's claims of development are false. He has only helped corrupt officials.' 'I want to remind Lalu that this is not the 1990s. This is 2015.' 'I am a bahubali for those looting society.'
'Everyone relies on caste to win elections in Bihar.'
'The BJP suddenly seems vulnerable. This is not entirely surprising. In the past too, governments and leaders who won a thumping Lok Sabha majority lost popularity in a matter of months... The by-polls results shows that a degree of disenchantment with the Modi government is setting in,' says Praful Bidwai.
Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party, Sharad Yadav of the rebel Janata Dal-United, D Raja of the Communist Party of India, Hardik Patel (Gujarat's Patidar leader), Dinesh Trivedi (Trinamool Congress) and Sushilkumar Shinde (Congress) attended the meeting and joined the march.
Everyone is playing politics over a dead person now, why no one bothered to visit him when he was alive, Paswan asked.
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."
RJD chief Lalu Prasad and other leaders claimed the countdown for the ouster of the BJP and its allies from power in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls had begun.
Senior state leaders of the two parties pointed to propping up of the "new set of leaders not having much political stature" and lack of communication for the failure to reconcile differences.
Bihar is no stranger to being at the centre of a tectonic shift in national politics fuelled by turbulent regional forces.
'You won't find such an apathetic indecisive party in the world.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Kumar on being sworn in as the chief minister.
Amid rumblings in the Bharatiya Janata Party over Bihar poll rout and attack on its leadership by party veterans, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday strongly defended Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party President Amit Shah, saying they cannot be held responsible for the defeat.
The second round of the voting was held in the 17 districts amid tight security and strict coronavirus guidelines in place. The voting percentage at 10.30 pm was 54.64, according to the Election Commissions Voter Turnout Apps provisionally data.
The bypolls are termed as a 'rehearsal' for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by CM Yogi Adityanath.
RJD MLA Dinesh Bhai has threatened to immolate himself if he does not get to keep his assembly seat.
The RJD leader's second daughter is not a politician, but has a clean image, which may endure her to Nitish Kumar.
'Both Pavan Varma and Prashant Kishor questioned the party president in a public forum.' 'That is why we had to show them the door.'
Kumar, whose "national role" has become a matter of much speculation since his break-up with the Bharatiya Janata Party last month, however also sought to rule himself out, for the umpteenth time, of the Prime Ministerial race.
Many bahubalis have fielded their wives and relatives as proxies.
The rising price of pulses has become a hot issue during the Bihar assembly polls.
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