The formula of Lok Sabha polls this year wherein JD-U and BJP had both fought 17 seats each, leaving six for Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party, which joined the National Democratic Alliance in 2014, a year after Kumar's exit, could not serve as the basis for the assembly polls, said the poll strategist.
Senior Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar on Sunday said he had parted ways with Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad 20 years ago due to differences on certain issues but this time he will stick together to keep "resurgent" BJP away from power in Bihar.
Many bahubalis have fielded their wives and relatives as proxies.
The LJP will also be given a Rajya Sabha berth and Paswan is likely to be its candidate.
Trouble erupted in Godapur village under the Town police station area, where an idol was found vandalised, following which the members of two communities indulged in heavy stone-pelting, District Magistrate Kaushal Kumar said.
National Democratic Alliance allies on Monday put up a united front amid vocal demands being made by some parties on their share of seats in Bihar polls but the crucial issue of seat-sharing was not discussed at their maiden joint meeting chaired by Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah.
Rahul hits out at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for joining hands with the BJP.
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.
Our political history tells us this has never worked. A united Opposition does work in some specific, limited situations, especially in the states. But never as some brilliant pan-national collection of diverse interests with no ideological or political core, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Half-way through the polls, the fight has become more personal.
Chirag Paswan once again claimed that a BJP-LJP government will be formed in Bihar.
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 BJP-led NDA leaders have attacked RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav for his statement that Bihar assembly polls is a fight between 'backward versus forward' forces.
Kumar will always be known as the reformer chief minister who brought governance back to Bihar.
'The only thing that makes Nitish Kumar acceptable to Biharis, to the Mahagatbandhan allies, is the BJP.'
"It was a social event and we did not talk politics there," he said on his interaction with Modi.
'A one-party State is not possible in a diverse country like India.'
The seat had fallen vacant following the death of Chirag Paswan's father and Lok Janshakti Party founder Ram Vilas Paswan. The BJP has nominated former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi for the seat.
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.
'...there are people in the NDA, who don't wish to see Narendra Modi as the prime minister. They are the ones circulating misleading news,' he claimed.
The Uttar Pradesh by-election will be the real test for the Modi government. By-election results are not a referendum on Modi but the time has come to analyse whether the Modi government is succeeding in assuring people that the promises it made would be fulfilled, says Dharmendra Kumar Singh.
'For the BJP, development is nothing more than a jumla,' says Tejaswi Yadav.
'I don't buy the theory that if the BJP gets less than 220 seats or 200 seats, there will be a change in leadership.'
The JD-U, may be the BJP's partner for now. But it is a party at all only because of Nitish Kumar. The day Nitish Kumar exits, the JD-U will split into hundreds of pieces. Obviously, Prashant Kishor is setting himself up as the vessel that will collect all the pieces and put them together in some sort of political instrument, explains Aditi Phadnis.
RJD leaders attacked PM Modi and CM Nitish Kumar, alleging that it was a malicious exercise.
Searches are being conducted on Friday at 12 locations including Delhi, Patna, Ranchi, Puri and Gurgaon.
Everyone is playing politics over a dead person now, why no one bothered to visit him when he was alive, Paswan asked.
Tejashwi accused the Nitish Kumar-led government of meting out "step-motherly" treatment to migrant labourers.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's bypoll win in four of the six seats it contested has invigorated the party ahead of assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
Launching a counteroffensive against the Bharatiya Janata Party for its 'return of jungle raj' remark, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav on Wednesday said if the killing of a youth in a road rage incident symbolised that, then even the national capital was no different.
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.
Amid a series of deliberations over a strategy for upcoming general and assembly elections by poll strategist Prashant Kishor, a group of senior leaders of the Congress has given its recommendations to party president Sonia Gandhi and left it to her to take a call on them and initiate organisational changes.
The Bharatiya Janata Party swept Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on Sunday inflicting a resounding defeat on the Congress to tighten its stranglehold in the Hindi heartland, in a big boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and setting the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
However, the SC allowed him to retain his official bungalow.
Through the yatra the UP CM would try to send the message that he was in the driver's seat, notwithstanding all the hue and cry within the party.
A statement issued by his party said'NDA will achieve spectacular success in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls in Bihar if these are fought projecting Kushwaha as the leader of the coalition.'
"You can see all of us working together. There is no discontent. The problem is, today newspapers have more pages than before, news channels run 24X7 and then there is social media where anybody can say anything without worrying about backing a claim with facts," he said.
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama's reported remarks that Bihar poll results prove that a majority of Hindus prefer harmony on Sunday received the support of the Janata Dal-United while the Bharatiya Janata Party played down the statement.
Ghulam Nabi Azad said this was just a beginning of the alliance process and the nitty-gritty would be decided in the next one or two days.
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