A statement to this effect was made in Patna by RCP Singh, a close aide of Kumar, amid buzz on cabinet expansion at the Centre.
The talk in a tea stall in the Yadav-dominated village of Mohli in Munger district of Bihar is all about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's exhortations to 'Yaduvanshis' to dump Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad for the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has fielded an unprecedented 22 candidates from the dominant backward caste.
The Bihar government on Wednesday issued shoot-at-sight orders against troublemakers and made tight security arrangements to ensure violence free polling in 6 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats to be held on Thursday.
Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien said the situation in Bihar is one of the reasons behind the Parliament session being cut short by the government.
Members of allies, the Bharatiya Janata Party and Lok Janshakti Party, were left out from the cabinet expansion.
Meraj Khalid Noor, who is popularly known as Bihar's Osama bin Laden for his uncanny resemblance with slain most-wanted Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, has said that he will contest the Lok Sabha polls against the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi.
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.
'Voters from the forward castes voted for JD-U because they feared Laloo Yadav's return, but since that fear is no longer there they may not see the need to vote for Nitish Kumar anymore.'
Altogether 160 MLAs voted in favour of the confidence motion while no vote was cast against the same.
'A one-party State is not possible in a diverse country like India.'
The RLSP's attack on the JD-U came in the backdrop of media reports after a recent meeting of Kumar with Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah in Delhi.
A part of the Hajipur Lok Sabha seat, Raghopur assembly segment in Vaishali district will vote in the second phase on November 3. The 31-year-old, the younger son of Lalu Prasad, had taken the electoral plunge from Raghopur in 2015, when he had barely reached the qualifying age of 25 for fighting polls.
Results coming out of Lok Sabha polls show that parties like Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party and Tamil Nadu's Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam managed to corner a large number of votes but failed to convert them into seats, while parties with lesser vote share have got seats to show in their kitty.
Amid reports that Naidu is seeking cabinet berths for his MPs, the TDP met Modi in Gujarat Bhawan in the national capital and the meeting lasted for over 30 minutes after which chief minister-designate of Andhra Pradesh left without talking to media.
The polling for the sixth phase on May 12 covers 6 states and one Union Territory.
'It is the RJD, otherwise known for misgovernance, which has offered a candidate of clean and performing credentials, rather than the NDA,' points out Mohammad Sajjad.
Claiming that a wave was blowing across the country in favour of BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, Paswan said, "Secularism aur communalism sirf chunaavi hathkande hain (secularism and communalism are poll ploys)."
Anti-incumbency against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's 15-year-old rule in Bihar is stronger that what Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD regime faced in 2005, LJP president Chirag Paswan said on Monday, asserting that he walked out of the ruling alliance in the state so as not to have any 'guilt' of playing a role in continuation of the current dispensation.
The BJP's rediscovery of its allies, including the PM touching the feet of Parakash Singh Badal, would be interpreted as the party's efforts to keep its flock together if it falls short of the majority mark on May 23.
BJP backed to the hilt Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as its leader in the state and rebuffed a rebellious Chirag Paswan, while acknowledging his Lok Janshakti Party as an ally 'at the Centre'. At a press conference which was attended by top leaders of the JD-U headed by Kumar and the BJP, it was made clear that 'only those who accept the chief ministers leadership will be deemed to be a part of the National Democratic Alliance in Bihar'.
'We can't underestimate future threats.'
A sea of people could be seen, besides dignitaries led by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, at the cremation site on the banks of the Ganges in the city that has been a witness to the Lok Janshakti Party founders long journey -- from a young MLA of the socialist party in the late 1960s to having served under six prime ministers.
On Friday, Paswan had said "any uneducated person becomes chief minister nowadays," in a veiled jibe at Rabri Devi.
'The BJP suddenly seems vulnerable. This is not entirely surprising. In the past too, governments and leaders who won a thumping Lok Sabha majority lost popularity in a matter of months... The by-polls results shows that a degree of disenchantment with the Modi government is setting in,' says Praful Bidwai.
Presence of Fadnavis will be keenly watched in view of recent tug of war between his home state Maharashtra and Bihar over death of Sushant Singh Rajput, a Patna born Bollywood actor.
He reaffirmed that parties opposed to the BJP can win with a "huge majority" in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls if they agree to join hands.
'...there are people in the NDA, who don't wish to see Narendra Modi as the prime minister. They are the ones circulating misleading news,' he claimed.
Counting's underway and the fate of the candidates is awaited. As we wait for the results with bated breath, here's how your heavyweights are faring for now.
Varma sought 'ideological clarity' from Nitish over extending alliance with the BJP beyond Bihar despite having expressed apprehensions 'in private' about the BJP-RSS leading the nation into a 'dangerous space'.
This is the first time, since the JDU-BJP alliance came to power in 2005, that the saffron party has staked claim for the speakers post.
The National Democratic Alliance in Bihar which so far had BJP, JD-U and the LJP as its constituents will now have another dalit-centric party HAM as a member.
Yadav vowed to dislodge the government headed by Nitish Kumar, whom Congress leader Avinash Pandey in his address accused of "apharan" (hijacking) of the mandate in the previous elections.
JD-U leaders came down heavily on the Begusarai MP for his snide remarks.
'Nitish is now a helpless junior ally of Hindutva.' 'He just cannot think of reining in the hoodlums raging, marauding and killing in the mohallas,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
A number of senior faces from the outgoing cabinet including Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal, Narendra Singh Tomar and Prakash Javadekar are expected to figure in the new cabinet.
Thackeray said the BJP's perception of being a "world winner" had been shattered with the results of the just-held state assembly polls.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday insisted that nothing much should be read into his recent meeting with an MP of the Lok Janshakti Party, which is headed by his bete noire Chirag Paswan, since members of Parliament and the state legislature call on him regularly over matters relating to their constituencies.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal-United and his bete noire Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav are not contesting the Lok Sabha polls which has put their 'prestige constituencies' of Nalanda and Patliputra at stake.
'The JD-U and RLSP will have to listen to whatever Amit Shah says.' 'The BJP has so much power that he will snub either of the two parties.'
'In this election, the only thing that is going to matter is which caste aligns with which coalition.'
