The Janata Dal-United will elect a new leader on Sunday, party chief Sharad Yadav said, a day after Nitish Kumar stepped down as the Bihar chief minister.
Amid signs of chill in Lok Janshakti Party leader Chirag Paswan's ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Sunday reached out to him for aligning with the Opposition, saying he can carry forward his father Ram Vilas Paswan's legacy only by joining the 'existential fight' against Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideologue M S Golwalkar's thoughts.
Five of the six Lok Janshakti Party MPs in Lok Sabha have joined hands against their leader Chirag Paswan and elected Pashupati Kumar Paras, the youngest brother of Paswan's late father and party founder Ram Vilas Paswan, in his place, causing a big churn in Bihar politics.
After the Janata Dal-United parted ways with ally the Bharatiya Janata Party, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will seek a trust vote on Wednesday at a special session of Bihar assembly to prove his majority, which he is expected to muster without any hitch with support of independents and Congress deciding to abstain.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday rubbished reports that he was trying to engineer defection in Rashtriya Janata Dal to bolster numbers of his government which at present is surviving on support of Independents and Congress Legislators.
He was accorded a hero's welcome by supporters of his parents.
Ram Vilas Paswan, 74, who was the Lok Janshakti Party patron, had undergone a heart surgery at a hospital in New Delhi a few days ago.
Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United president Nitish Kumar on Tuesday asserted that "all is well" in the National Democratic Alliance even as his party vice president Prashant Kishor opened a front against Bharatiya Janata Party leader and his deputy in the government Sushil Kumar Modi.
In a bid to mobilise support after serial blasts struck its rally in Patna on Sunday, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday began a 'shahid asthi-kalash yatra' of the six blast victims from six different villages that would be taken to different parts of the state before being immersed in Ganga river in Patna.
Both the BJP and the JD-U abetted the LJP split but interestingly, independently. And there hangs a tale of conflicting interests, gamesmanship, subterfuge, and retribution, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
With some variations, all regional political formations, whether in power presently or out of it, share some common features: Tight family control of the political apparatus, key members in elected or appointed positions, obvious wealth but not quite known sources of income, and family factionalism, sometimes open and bitter, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
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 term of the Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura legislative assemblies is ending on March 6, March 13 and March 14 respectively.
The Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday saw cross-voting by a BJP MLA while another party legislator claimed that she was prevented from voting.
Lok Janshakti Party leader Chirag Paswan on Wednesday blamed Janata Dal-United for engineering the split in his party and rejected the decisions taken by the faction headed by his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras, saying the party's constitution does not authorise them any such power.
While Rahul loyalists were keen that he be given the post, a leader known to be close to him said, "If he does not become the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, then he should quit politics."
The BJP has the maximum number of such politicians.
Kovind spoke to Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray over phone and thanked him for supporting his candidature.
Kovind may bag over 62 per cent votes but fall short of the 69 per cent votes polled by incumbent Pranab Mukherjee in 2012.
Nitish Kumar on Monday escalated the stand-off in the ruling JD-U in Bihar.
Kumar is reported to have made the Rajya Sabha remark during an informal chat with some journalists who had asked him about his recent tour of areas falling under the now abolished Barh Lok Sabha constituency which he had represented many times.
Grand alliance leaders accuse their rivals of having engineered electoral tactics to confuse its voters.
Ending speculation, Janata Dal-United Chief Sharad Yadav has been re-nominated from Madhepura as the party released the second list of 32 candidates for Lok Sabha election in Bihar.
Sounding confident of winning the trust vote on February 20, Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi said he would enter the ring as a "wrestler" without bothering about his win or loss.
Opposition attacked the government, saying prohibition law was being used to target Dalits.
Paswan also said that BJP leaders were free to throw barbs at the LJP, as part of their "coalition dharma", but he would always hold Prime Minister Narendra Modi in high regard.
Prime Minister Modi will address three rallies -- at Dehri-on Sone (Rohtas district), Gaya and Bhagalpur -- to seek support for National Democratic Alliance nominees on different assembly constituencies going to vote in the first phase on October 28. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is also slated to launch his campaign in Bihar elections on Friday.
The saffron party is assured of victory in eight of the ten seats in UP going by its dominant numbers in the state assembly.
'The Congress has indeed become overly dependent on the RJD.' 'A few Congress leaders have successfully convinced the national leadership about the benefits of maintaining ties with the RJD.'
"Nyay ki jeet hui hain (truth has triumphed)," Kumar said soon after the apex court's verdict upholding a CBI probe into actor Sushant Singh Rajput's suicide.
Four Janata Dal-United legislators were disqualified on Saturday from the Bihar assembly under the anti-defection law for anti-party activities, including cross voting in Rajya Sabha election.
Tej Pratap, the RJD chief's elder son said that "the numbers could swing as voters' mood is also not quite clear at the moment".
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.
Asking the people of Bihar to bring their own government to power, the post made a veiled reference to the alleged high handedness of bureaucracy under the JD(U)-BJP rule but fell shy of a frontal attack on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his arch rival, or the near hegemonic saffron party which considers him a bete noire.
All of V R College's 1,007 students secured a first class in the Class 12 exam! 222 of them got identical marks!
Allies since the 1990s, the JD-U and the BJP have in the recent past squabbled on issues ranging from Agnipath, caste census, population law and ban on loudspeakers.
In a bid to break the impasse on government-formation, Delhi Lt Governor Najeeb Jung on Wednesday night spoke to Harsh Vardhan, Bharatiya Janata Party's chief ministerial candidate and leader the largest single party in assembly polls, for discussion on Thursday on the issue and Vardhan is likely to point out that he does not have the numbers.
Incumbents Pushkar Singh Dhami and Pramod Sawant are the clear favourites but face some opposition
The JD-U leader intends to parade the MLAs before President Pranab Mukherjee.
The elections to the Upper House from the state, where assembly polls are due later this year, have received greater attention with BJP president Amit Shah and Union Minister Smriti Irani entering the fray and the Congress putting up its heavyweight Ahmed Patel.
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