After his threat of withdrawal of support to the United Progressive Alliance government, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Monday met President Pratibha Patil and apprised her of his party's stand on the issue of the Women's Reservation Bill. Yadav, whose party, along with the Samajwadi Party, are strongly opposing the bill in its present form, told Patil that his party is not against the reservation for women.
"We totally agree with the contention of Lalu," said a Bench comprising Justice S N Variava, Justice AR Lakshmanan and Justice S H Kapadia,
'Yes, I am a rebel, I am the son of Laluji and his blood is in me,' Tej Pratap is reported to have told supporters.
The delegation also demanded an inquiry into the scam, which was exposed by a TV channel. The leaders claimed that the documents prove the involvement of Lalu, Union Ministers Premchand Gupta, Kanti Singh and Raghunath Jha in the scam.
With Wednesday's Parivartan rally considered crucial to reassert the popularity of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, the party has booked 13 trains to transport people to the event to Patna.
Elected from Madhepura in Bihar in a bypoll in October last year on a Rashtriya Janata Dal ticket after Railway Minister Lalu Prasad vacated the seat, Yadav took the oath in Hindi.
Manjhi's political journey took a dramatic turn when, in 2014, he was unexpectedly anointed Chief Minister by Nitish Kumar, who had resigned after a disastrous Lok Sabha election.
Prakash Jha is at his most confused self in presenting Aarakshan to us.
An unholy row has broken out in the Parliament House between the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and its most critical alliance partner, the Trinamool Congress, over a room for the new Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi.
Election strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor has predicted that JD(U) president Nitish Kumar will contest the upcoming assembly polls in Bihar in alliance with the BJP but may switch sides later, with hopes for another term as the chief minister. Kishor, founder of the Jan Suraaj Party, also asserted that Kumar's popularity has declined and he is unlikely to win a fifth consecutive term. He challenged the BJP to declare Kumar as the chief ministerial candidate, arguing that they would struggle to win seats if they did so. Kishor also criticized Kumar's leadership, accusing him of being "physically tired and mentally retired" and of "bringing disrepute to Bihar" by touching Prime Minister Narendra Modi's feet. He said his new party will enter the fray to pull Bihar "out of the political rut" and that the state's much-touted prohibition policy is an example of the BJP's duplicity.
Among those attending the meeting from the government side were Defence Minister AK Anthony, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal. The Left parties were represented by the Communist Party of India's A B Bardhan and D Raja, and the CPI-M by Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechuri
The court granted bail to Rabri and Tejashwi Yadav in the CBI case on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and a surety of a like amount.
Introducing the bill, Rijiju said the consultation process of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) was the largest ever exercise carried out by a parliamentary panel in India's democratic history.
The BJP hopes to deepen its support among backward castes, especially the Extremely Backward Classes, in Bihar following the announcement of Bharat Ratna for former chief minister Karpoori Thakur, a leader who enjoys admiration from backward satraps of various hues.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has come out with its own complaint against the marriage.
Congress has suspended its leader Sadhu Yadav in Bihar on Monday for meeting and praising Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. After meeting Modi, Yadav also likened Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi to Hitler.
'Stalin's intention is plain and simple.' 'The DMK wants to convert what is an 'incumbency-centred' election for the party-led alliance into one more 'Modi/BJP election' after Stalin's successive success in 2019 and 2021, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
As the exit polls were sharply split on who would get to rule Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav on Saturday said their grand Mahagatbadhan alliance would win the Bihar Assembly polls with 190 seats.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal leader also said, "This is not the first meeting of opposition leaders nor is it going to be the last. Leaders of different hues have agreed to meet and they will all raise issues that they feel strongly about. There is no problem with that."
After reaching Patna on Thursday night, Shakti Singh Gohil, Congress's Bihar in-charge, asserted that the situation won't have risen had RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav been out of jail. Lalu is serving a sentence in a fodder scam case in present-day Jharkhand.
The man who has studied Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar from a vantage position in Patna's corridors of power speaks to Sheela Bhatt about the upcoming Bihar assembly election.
'The clearest interpretation of the November 8 mandate is that the backwards, Dalits and minorities, and a huge proportion of women cutting across caste and class, displayed massive consolidation to the extent that despite chipping of votes by the Left Front, by the Third Front and by the BSP, Mahagathbandhan candidates won, and in many cases by huge margins,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
In an apparent reference to the Congress with which it failed to strike an understanding for the upcoming assembly polls in Jharkhand, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad has said national parties are out to 'crush' smaller and regional outfits.
Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal was derecognised as a national party by the Election Commission on Friday, a decision that comes ahead of the assembly polls in Bihar.
The government on Thursday cleared 65-day bonus for 16 lakh Railway employees for the year 2005-06, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav announced in New Delhi on Thursday.
Lalu Prasad's elder son Tej Pratap Yadav on Friday turned up at a function hosted by Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras, triggering speculations about the maverick RJD leader, who wears his religious fervour on the sleeves, cosying up to BJP-led NDA which his father has always fought tooth and nail.
Malaysia awarded IRCON International Ltd to design, construct, commission and maintain the proposed electrified double-track rail at the country's Seremban-Gemas sector. IRCON's latest project comes after an earlier Ipoh-Padang Besar project in 2001-2003, for which the Malaysian government had considered the Indian company but later shelved the plan.
Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav announced 55 new trains in the Rail Budget 2006-07 for different destinations across the country.
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
Former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad, who was sentenced to five years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs five lakh in a 17-year-old fodder scam case, on Thursday claimed that he was falsely implicated.
'By making Rachel Rajeshwari, Tejashwi has done an exemplary thing.'
The CMP smacked of Lalu's hallmark-- social engineering.
Besides, over 2,000 people including workers and leaders of the opposition parties were arrested across Bihar during their protest on Friday, police sources told rediff.com in Patna.
Bharatiya Janata Party is expected to bag between 63 to 79 seats out of 120 seats in the key Hindi heartland states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the Lok Sabha polls, according to a survey.
'In the first lockdown, my mother used to feed me everything possible.' 'After all, she is an Indian mother.' 'Sometimes laddoos, sometimes parathas.' 'I gained almost 10 kg.' 'When Maharani fell into my lap, the weight was a perfect match for the character.'
To begin with, the service will be available in 30 places across the country. The postal department would issue railway tickets through the computerised Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counters provided by the railway ministry.
Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has hinted at a people friendly railway budget, which will be presented on Feb 26.
