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.
Nitish has been engaging with national and regional party leaders in recent months as part of his mission to strengthen 'Opposition unity'.
The performance of Janata Dal-United has down compared its performance in the 2015 elections and the ruling party could not win even half of the number of seats it contested in this election.
The order that was passed less than a week ahead of the first phase of polls scheduled on October 10 throws a spanner in the election process.
Union minister RCP Singh, who was recently denied another term in the Rajya Sabha by the Janata Dal-United he formerly headed, should "heed the message" and resign from the cabinet, a key political aide of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has said.
For renomination to the Rajya Sabha, Nadda will have to look for a seat outside his home state of Himachal Pradesh as the Congress is in power there.
The JD-U also accused the ruling BJP of having "authoritarian" tendencies and destabilising non-BJP governments in several states, including Delhi and Jharkhand besides Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra earlier.
Bihar CM Jitan Ram Manjhi is set to meet PM Narendra Modi while attending the NITI Aayog meetings.
Ram Vilas Paswan was no fool. He knew very well about the ownership tussle going on beneath this veneer of congeniality. At all costs, he wanted to keep the lid on the family drama. He did not want it to come in the way of his son's coronation.
In a village of Rajputs, the vote is for Modi even though the BJP is not contesting from here.
Lalu Prasad and his Muslim-Yadav line has completely gone off track.
Kumar had also made it clear that he was in the process of uniting the non-BJP leaders.
Even until Monday, some senior BJP leaders, including those from Bihar, were of the view that the JD-U leader was engaging in brinkmanship to pressure his bigger partner to be more accommodative.
The CBI has said the mall belongs to Yadav who has made investment in the project through a company.
He has served as a minister in all the previous National Democratic Alliance governments in Bihar. He was the minister for the road construction department in the last government.
It is a double century with a difference for the cricketer turned politician, who is the lead campaigner for the Opposition Mahagathbandhan in the state.
The Union home minister recalled that the BJP had won far greater number of seats in the last assembly polls than the JD(U) but Prime Minister Narendra Modi kept up his promise to back Kumar for another term in office.
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.
RJD-JD-U leaders believe Dhirendra Krishna Shastri's visit is part of the BJP's 2024 poll strategy.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party falling short of a majority in the Lok Sabha and needing the National Democratic Alliance partners to form the government at the Centre, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United head Nitish Kumar and Telugu Desam Party's N Chandrababu Naidu have emerged as potential kingmakers.
The Janata Dal-United leader maintained that having taken the initiative to bring parties opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party, he desired nothing for himself but admitted having stressed at the meeting the need to expedite seat-sharing arrangements.
Sunday's denial of Rajya Sabha ticket to Union minister indicates that an end game to the JD-U-BJP rift may be in sight.
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.
Facing apparent defeat, Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi resigned on Friday.
The Congress, which had fought nine, lost all but managed to retain Kishanganj.
Rahul Gandhi has spoken to Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav about the Begusarai seat, but the CPI is unwilling to give up the seat.
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.
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.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said R C P Singh, whom his Janata Dal-United has denied another term in the Rajya Sabha, does not need to resign as a Union minister ahead of the expiry of his Rajya Sabha tenure.
JD-U leaders contend that R C P Singh may have misled the BJP leadership into believing that Nitish Kumar was ready for a smaller share in power at the Centre.
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.
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.
"It was a social event and we did not talk politics there," he said on his interaction with Modi.
'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.
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".
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.
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
Ruling parties held sway in most of the 13 states in the assembly byelection results declared on Saturday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies wresting seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan and the Trinamool Congress sweeping West Bengal.
