The chief minister's presence at the RJD Iftar at Lalu's home on Friday instantly sparked speculation about Nitish getting closer to the RJD after reports circulated of his ally the Bharatiya Janata Party wanting to replace the Janata Dal-United supremo as CM with one of its own.
A member of the 1983 cricket World Cup-winning squad, Azad was suspended from the Bharatiya Janata Party for openly targeting the then Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over alleged irregularities and corruption in the Delhi and District Cricket Association in December 2015. He joined the Congress in 2018.
The Nitish Kumar-led Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar will go for a floor test on August 24 to prove its majority in the state assembly.
While the outcome will be known once the meeting is over, more than one of the prospective attendees denied the party's ties with the BJP having worsened to an extent to call for a realignment.
With the assembly poll results in three states being a disappointment for the Congress, some rumblings have begun among the constituents of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) ahead of their meeting on December 6, with many leaders alleging that the grand old party ignored others, but was unable to win elections on its own.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday met his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal at the latter's residence in New Delhi and extended 'complete support' to him in the Aam Aadmi Party government's ongoing tussle with the Centre over the control of administrative services.
Calling former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda-led party "communal" following its alliance with the BJP, he urged Janata Dal-Secular, to remove the word 'Secular' from its name.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is set to host a meeting of its constituents on Tuesday in what is being seen as a show of strength by the ruling alliance amid a get-together of opposition parties in Bengaluru to forge unity, as the two sides step up their campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
The party rank and file seemed bewildered at the sudden turn of events which has taken the spotlight away from the "Har Ghar Tiranga" programme which the BJP was planning to hold with much fanfare.
The INDIA bloc has 95 MPs in Rajya Sabha of which 45 were suspended on Monday.
A complaint petition was filed in a court in Bihar's Muzaffarpur against State Information Technology Minister Mohammad Israel Mansuri for visiting the Vishnupad temple in Gaya.
The Congress also asserted that the opposition INDIA bloc had been formed for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections at the national level and was not state specific.
The PM expressed gratitude to the MPs voting in favour of the bill and hoped that it will alleviate sufferings of many who faced persecution.
Former Union minister RCP Singh on Thursday rued the "witch hunt" in the Janata Dal-United which he felt had resulted in many of his loyalists being sacked after the impression grew that he has ceased to be in the good books of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
Without naming Chirag Paswan, the legislators are reported to have recalled the actions of the former Lok Janshakti Party chief during the 2020 state assembly polls while warning the CM that if they were not alert, it would not be good for the party.
There is a strong possibility of opposition parties coming together to fight the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on Monday, stressing that he has had good talks with them and many will join hands gradually.
Some constituents of the alliance have raised concern that the panels, particularly the 14-member coordination committee, are at risk of becoming ineffective, as their decisions have so far not been acted upon.
Expressing disappointment with the Janata Dal (United) contemplating over ending its 18-year-old alliance, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Rameshwar Prasad Chaurasia in an apparent attack on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday said that his political outfit never betrays its partners.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
The speculation was triggered after Shravan Kumar, a Bihar minister, who is also the Janata Dal-United's in-charge for UP, said there were 'demands' that the party boss enter the fray from the adjoining state.
Poll strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor on Wednesday asserted that if the newly formed 'Mahagathbandhan' government in Bihar provides five to 10 lakh jobs in the next one or two years, he would withdraw his 'Jan Suraj Abhiyan' and extend support to the Nitish Kumar dispensation.
Pointing out that this is the first time that a complete alliance has been formed by the major Left parties in Bihar, the Communist Party of India state secretary Rajendra Prasad Singh said top Central leaders of the three parties will campaign together for the by-elections.
The EC, in its order issued on Friday said the group led by Nitish Kumar is entitled to use the reserved symbol 'arrow'.
Old-timers seem not impressed with the idea of dropping from the RJD poster its jailed supremo who is acknowledged, across party lines, as the biggest crowd puller ever seen in Bihar's poitical arena.
Sharing Yadav's tweet, Giriraj Singh, who has often been critical of Kumar, on Wednesday said, "The snake has entered your home."
The coming weeks are sure to have a lot of drama unfolding in Maharashtra, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
According to a senior Congress leader, the constituents of the opposition alliance intend to move forward with the theme "Main Nahin, Hum (We, Not Me)" at the meeting.
Disgruntled Janata Dal-United leader Upendra Kushwaha on Monday resigned from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party, less than two years after returning to the party, and announced formation of the 'Rashtriya Loktantrik Janata Dal'.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
64-year-old Hariprasad is a Congress member of Rajya Sabha from Karnataka.
The BJP appointed Sunil Bansal, one of the party's key election managers, as its national general secretary and in charge of three opposition-ruled states -- West Bengal, Odisha and Telangana -- in run-up to the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.
Amit Shah wants to increase the party's nationwide vote share by at least 10 per cent from the 37.7 per cent it secured five years ago and ensure above 50 per cent vote share in the states where it came close to that benchmark, but couldn't cross it.
The ruling Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party are contesting the polls on a 40:20 seat-sharing basis.
'Under this amendment, in any dispute over Waqf properties, the Waqf Board cannot approach the court.' 'This is very surprising because the government instead of protecting Waqf properties they are snatching it away and not allowing them to go to court.' 'The third biggest landowner in India is the Waqf Board after the Indian Army and Indian Railways.'
Kushwaha retorted saying that he could not leave the party without his share in the "paternal property".
The ruling coalition won 125 seats in the 243-member state assembly against 110 clinched by the opposition Grand Alliance to pave the way for a fourth successive term for Kumar in office.
Addressing party workers, Thackeray claimed Mufti told him that the BJP's alliance with the PDP was on the condition that Article 370, which provided special status to Jammu and Kashmir, won't be abolished.
Most of the leaders who attended the meeting agreed that Kishor joining the Congress would be beneficial for the party, they added.
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