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 longest-serving chief minister of any Hindi- speaking state, Nitish Kumar seems to have acquired an aura of indispensability when it comes to the highest seat of power in Bihar.
Aiming to end the 25-year rule of Lalu-Nitish combine in Bihar, the National Democratic Alliance will formally launch on Thursday its campaign for the crucial assembly polls scheduled later this year with BJP president Amit Shah set to flag off 160 'parivartan raths' from Patna.
This phase will decide the fate of senior minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav of Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal legislature party leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui and RJD chief Lalu Prasad's 'Man Friday' Bhola Yadav among others.
Despite the show of unity, JD-U spokesmen Neeraj Kumar, however, said the coalition dharma is bigger than showing obstinacy.
A meeting of the Janata Dal-United Legislature Party has been called on February seven amid reports that Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi was under pressure to quit and make way for his predecessor Nitish Kumar.
JD-U leaders came down heavily on the Begusarai MP for his snide remarks.
He is likely to have the support of grand alliance partners Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awami Morcha.
Millions of devotees, particularly married women, took a dip in the rivers, ponds and makeshift water bodies and offered prayers as the four-day-long Chhath began amidst tight security on Monday in Bihar.
They entered the Bihar poll battle to protect and carry forward their fathers' political legacy, but many of them could not win their own seat though some tasted victory.
With both the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata Dal-United decimated by BJP in the Lok Sabha elections, RJD chief Lalu Prasad indicated at fighting the coming Assembly elections in Bihar with the JD-U.
In a letter to jailed RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, the veteran leader wrote he was quitting the party. "Since the death of Jannayak Karpoori Thakur, I stood behind you for 32 years, but not now," he wrote in his brief one-line resignation letter to Prasad, who is serving sentences in four fodder scam cases in Ranchi.
"Governance, governance, governance," was what Nitish Kumar said were his three priorities when he took the helm of Bihar in 2005.
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.
Kumar said after the meeting that all parties from Bihar spoke in one voice on the need for a caste-based census, and asserted that statistics about different castes will help in formulating development schemes effectively as many of them have not benefitted so far in line with their actual population.
The LJP chief also raised accusing finger on Kumar in the implementation of prohibition laws in the state and accused the CM of gaining from smuggling of liquor into the state.
Now, that's how desperately Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to win Bihar. M I Khan reports from Patna
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has ruled out a rethink on the seat-sharing formula for the 'Grand Secular Alliance' for the state Assembly polls, a day after Nationalist Congress Party's ultimatum for reconsideration by August 20 and its insistence on 12 seats.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to expand his cabinet when Parliament breaks for recess during the Budget Session. Archis Mohan reports
Anwar, an AICC general secretary, came out with a flurry of tweets calling for 'urgent and deep introspection' over the debacle of the party, the second largest constituent of the opposition coalition, which contested as many as 70 seats but returned with a tally of just 19.
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.
The Musahars, still regarded as 'untouchables' in the state, usually hunt rats for food in the paddy fields.
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
Why MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy and his party, the BJP, are angry with Pappu Yadav.
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.
With their high-decibel campaigns so far, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party may appear to be locked in a direct fight in Uttar Pradesh.
Raising the 'Jungle Raj' pitch, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday warned that Lalu Prasad will "remote control" the affairs in Bihar and "kidnapping" will be only industry that will flourish if the opposition grand alliance comes to power.
'Yogi Adityanath is working for one caste only and suppressing the others,' Bihar Minister and NDA ally Mukesh Sahni tells M I Khan.
The JD-U leader intends to parade the MLAs before President Pranab Mukherjee.
Amid tight security cover, polling began on Friday morning in the second phase of the Bihar assembly elections, spanning 32 constituencies spread over six Naxal-hit districts.
The state polls are due in October-November.
The numbers were revealed some concerns arose, says Chirag Paswan
A railway station and a police vehicle were torched and several law enforcers injured in stone-pelting incidents on the fourth consecutive day of protests against Agnipath scheme on Saturday when a bandh was also called to press for the demand for rollback of the new scheme for recruitment in armed forces.
A day after the Patna high court slammed the Bihar government for its poor handling of the second wave of the pandemic and sought to know whether it was enforcing lockdown or not, the administration on Tuesday announced imposition of lockdown from May 5 to May 15.
With the political scenario in Bihar heating up in view of approaching assembly polls and the much-publicised Janata Parivar merger in doldrums, Rashtriya Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad on Monday threw the ball in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's court saying it was time to decide about the alliance.
The senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader had made the allegation in a tweet on Sunday wherein he had also launched a veiled attack on a sitting Congress MLA, who had shot off a letter to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, seeking return of Rs 50 lakh released from his local area development fund.
The BJP-ed National Democratic Alliance on Wednesday launched an all-out attack on the Bihar CM.
There is a conspiracy to get Lalu murdered, but we will give a befitting reply to the centre, said Tej Pratap.
Family feuds, in what are essentially family-run outfits, have cast a shadow over the reunification efforts of Janata Party.
Bihar's Ruling Janata Dal-United legislator Anant Singh was arrested on Wednesday in a case of kidnapping and extortion at Bihita in rural Patna.
