Paras, who was sworn in as a Cabinet Minister on Wednesday in the Narendra Modi-led government and made the Minister of Food Processing Industries, asked Chirag Paswan to do "self-introspection" about his mistakes.
Expelled Janata Dal-United Member of Parliament Sabir Ali on Friday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and praised Narendra Modi, saying the Gujarat chief minister is the "most capable" person to lead the country forward.
Over 400 incumbent Lok Sabha members including Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Lal Krishna Advani and Rajnath Singh have not yet declared their assets and liability details, according to an RTI reply.
The actor-turned-politician whose criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has grown progressively sharper, didn't figure on the BJP's list of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls.
Insiders say the BJP is now concerned the LJP putting up a good fight against the JD-U would mean benefitting the MGB in those seats. Moreover, Chirag and Tejaswi are known to be friends, and the former is battling for his political survival.
Bihar assembly elections which are to be announced shortly are expected to be five-phased and around 50,000 paramilitary personnel will be deployed in each phase to ensure peaceful polling.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday sacked its recalcitrant Bihar member of legislative council Tunnaji Pandey whose utterances against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar were putting a strain on the tenuous relations between the two alliance partners.
The invite to Paswan from the BJP assumes significance as this made it clear that the LJP remains a member of the NDA despite walking out of the alliance in Bihar during the state assembly polls.
The former Deputy chief minister made the sensational assertion on his twitter handle, sharing a mobile number which, he claimed, Prasad was having access to despite serving sentences in fodder scam cases.
Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday filed his nomination papers from the Hajipur parliamentary constituency in Bihar, and claimed that he would break his own Guinness World Record for winning a parliamentary election with the highest margin.
"We want to make it clear that we have no relations (with LJP), and we do not like this politics of spreading confusion," BJP leader and Union minister Prakash Javadekar said.
People took to the streets in New Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Jammu, Bhopal, Patna and other cities and set fire to the Chinese flag and photos of the neighbouring country's President Xi Jinping. Protesters urged the Modi government to ensure that martyrdom of the soldiers in the Galwan Valley did not go in vain.
'Shatrughan Sinha's name is in the Congress's probable candidates list.'
Murmu's vote share is now likely to go past 61 per cent, while it was earlier estimated to be around 50 per cent at the time of her nomination.
Bharatiya Janata Party and Lok Janshakti Party on Thursday night stitched a pre-poll alliance with the Ram Vilas Paswan-led party returning to the NDA fold, 12 years after it quit over Gujarat riots, and it will fight seven out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar under a seat-sharing deal.
Uncertainty shadows the composition of the two main political alliances in Bihar with several parties still exploring their choices as the Election Commission on Friday announced the schedule for the assembly polls.
The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's vote share in the just-concluded Jharkhand assembly polls has slumped to 18.72 per cent despite the party winning 30 of the total 81 seats in the state. The JMM had won 19 seats in 2014 polls with a vote share of 20.43 per cent. This time the party bagged 30 seats but its vote share came down to 18.72 per cent.
Paswan was a minister under six different prime ministers, hardly out of government since he was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1977, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'We had the option of either crossing over to the opposition or fighting on our own with a focus on seats being contested by the JD-U as its reluctance was the main reason the LJP was offered only so few seats'
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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has boosted the representation of backward castes, dalits, tribals and women in his Council of Ministers in a big shake-up of his government with a focus on politically crucial states, including the all-important Uttar Pradesh.
The nation belongs to Muslims as much as it does to others, Modi said, accusing the Opposition of spreading confusion among them about the law.
Of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state, BJP will contest 20, while the JD-U, LJP and RLSP will contest 12, five and two seats respectively.
Speaking to the media, Paswan said, "I am beginning Ashirvad Yatra from Hajipur because it was my father's karmbhoomi. We will hold this yatra in every district. Our only aim is to take everyone's blessings.
Gandhi had decided not to celebrate her birthday because of rape incidents and assaults on women in the country.
Addressing the Sena workers in Mumbai for the second consecutive day, he also said that doors of the state and party are closed for the rebels MLAs.
'We are allies and equals. We have to run Bihar collectively'
Paswan, 70, was admitted to the hospital on Thursday after he complained of breathlessness.
The crowds were stunned into silence for a few seconds, after which they erupted in applause for the 69-year-old leader who has ruled the state for nearly 15 years.
A powerful lobby of BJP leaders -- mostly from the upper castes -- want to give no more than 70-80 assembly seats to its three allies.
The National Democratic Alliance in Bihar suffered a jolt on Wednesday as a Lok Janshakti Party MP resigned from the party post of general secretary and two BJP MLAs who were denied ticket met Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
While the relation between the LJP and the JD-U has long been far from smooth, Manjhi's entry in the NDA has added to its pique against the JD-U.
The RSS wants three nominees inducted: Tejaswi Surya, the young BJP MP from Bengaluru South, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, a Rajya Sabha member, and former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
With the Biju Janata Dal backing the National Democratic Alliance's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu, the vote share of the ruling dispensation has now crossed 50 percent, virtually paving the way for her election as the first tribal President and the youngest too.
Amid reports of Nitish Kumar shifting to Delhi as Rajya Sabha member to play a bigger role in uniting parties against the Bharatiya Janata Party, Bihar Janata Dal-United President Basistha Narayan Singh on Saturday dismissed any such possibility terming the reports as "imaginary."
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday claimed that neither the Bharatiya Janata Party nor the Congress would get a majority in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, while also dismissing the possibility of emergence of a Third Front.
Manjhi said Paswan has never raised a voice for rights of the Dalits and the poorest of the poor.
Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Arun Jaitley, J P Nadda and Prakash Javadekar were among the key leaders from the BJP at the meeting.
Bharatiya Janshakti chief Uma Bharti on Friday announced withdrawal of her party candidates from Uttar Pradesh elections following Vishwa Hindu Parishad's call to make Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kalyan Singh chief minister.
Kumar banged his table at Patna's Indian Coffee House as he announced this to an audience that was discussing alleged corruption in Bihar in 1977, writes Sankarshan Thakur in his biography of Kumar -- The Brothers Bihari.
