Is Nitish Kumar, seen here at an Iftar party in Patna on Friday, April 15, 2022, worried at the video making the rounds of social media of men wearing saffron scarves brandishing swords and shouting slogans outside a mosque in Chhapra, north Bihar?
The formidable political leader and former union minister was sentenced by a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court to five years' prison term and slapped with a fine of Rs 60 lakh during the day in connection with the embezzlement of Rs 139 crore from Doranda treasury in the fodder scam.
The case pertains to allegations that Lalu Prasad, as railway minister, handed over the maintenance of two hotels run by the IRCTC, a subsidiary of the Indian Railways, in Ranchi and Puri to Sujata Hotels, a company owned by Vinay and Vijay Kochhar, in return for a prime plot of three acres in Patna through a benami company.
'Reports of the JD-U joining hands with the BJP again is baseless.'
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP national president JP Nadda and several other famous faces were seen at polling booths, exercising their franchise in the final and seventh phase of the Lok Sabha polls on Saturday.
The former Bihar chief minister is most likely to be shifted to the hospital in the national capital on Tuesday itself, they said.
'If Lalu puts the agenda of his son's career ahead of the coalition's interest, this coalition will fare very badly.' 'Lalu will ultimately want that his son becomes deputy chief minister but if he's prepared to wait for some time, nothing bad will happen for the coalition,' Professor Prabhat Ghosh, Director, Asian Development Research Institute, tells Archana Masih/Rediff.com
The CBI said the RJD leader is likely to get involved in political activities and misuse the grant of bail ahead of upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Yadav claimed that his boss Nitish Kumar, with whom he took oath the day before, has issued instructions to the officials concerned to accord "top priority" to job creation.
What some of our leaders were up to on Tuesday, December 6, 2022.
'Most leaders, from Lalu Yadav and Mamata to M K Stalin, respect and trust Sonia. She should continue unless she expressly declines.'
Akhilesh Yadav's stock rose dramatically on Tuesday with his Samajwadi Party cutting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party down to size in Uttar Pradesh.
Lalu's word is final in the RJD when even when he is serving a long jail sentence after being convicted in fodder scam cases.
Ailing Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad has returned to his home turf Bihar, amid escalating political temperatures over issues of caste census, the Rajya Sabha biennial polls and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registering yet another corruption case against the septuagenarian.
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.
One person was killed and three others injured in post-poll violence in Bihar's Saran district on Tuesday morning, police said.
'Some locals suggested that a heated argument between a group of kanwariyas and flower sellers outside the temple may have triggered the incident'
The Bharatiya Janata Party has come out with its own complaint against the marriage.
In a ghastly incident that has sent shock waves across Bihar, former state minister Mukesh Sahni's 70-year-old father was found stabbed to death at his native home in Darbhanga district, a top police officer said.
The NCW said it strongly condemns the defamatory remarks and requests strict action against Moitra.
Can Nitishbabu create an anti-BJP phalanx like Jayaprakash Narayan did in 1977 or will his efforts come undone by Opposition leaders' political ambitions and, of course, the BJP's agency-aided campaign of intimidation?
Even as parleys continue in both states, the grand old party is expected to contest less than 110 seats in the November 20 polls for the 288-member Maharashtra assembly.
Lok Janshakti Party MP Mehboob Ali Kaiser, the lone Muslim to have been elected to the Lok Sabha from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in Bihar, joined the Rashtriya Janata Dal on Sunday, in a shot in the arm for the opposition party amid the elections.
"Lalu ji had madhur sambandh (cordial relations) with my father and political mentor Ram Vilas Paswan. I thank him for lending credence to my leadership. But, my current priority is the ongoing state-wide Ashirwad Yatra", Chirag told reporters in Patna.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal on Sunday has expressed its full faith and confidence in its jailed leader Lalu Prasad and his wife and former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi to lead the party.
Notably, the JD-U has put up a better than expected performance in Lok Sabha polls.
Appearing on national television to mark the silver jubilee of the party he founded in 1997 after breaking away from the Janata Dal, Prasad, who is suffering from many ailments and convalescing at his MP daughter Misa Bharti's residence in New Delhi, recalled his struggles for OBC quota and the fight for the rights of the weaker sections.
"If election is held in the country today, the BJP would draw a nought," the RJD chief said.
'Few leaders are fortunate to win such a ringing endorsement from the electorate in an election when the prime minister and his lieutenant staked their all and almost daily upped the ante.' 'Now that he has won the election so convincingly, the Mahagatbandhan's Mahanayak needs to get to business at hand,' says Archana Masih.
In the battle for 2024, the place is hogging the limelight, primarily because of Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who according to some opinion polls, may turn out to be the dark horse when votes are counted on June 4.
The poll results give the ruling Janata Dal-United-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance 170 seats in the 243-member house. The Laloo Prasad Yadav-Ram Vilas Paswan alliance is set to be reduced to 34 seats, according to the predictions.
The Mahagathbandhan's seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls was over.
Sources said the opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasise on building a common ground.
BJP IT department head Amit Malviya shared on Twitter what he said were the details of accidents under these ministers and added such 'worthies' are the ones demanding the resignation of the 'most qualified' railway minister the country has had in seven and half decades.
Nitish 'sent his emissary, Prashant Kishor, to me on five different occasions.' 'Kishor seemed to indicate that if I were to assure in writing my party's support to the JD-U, the latter would pull out of the BJP alliance and rejoin the Mahagathbandhan.' A revealing excerpt from Lalu Prasad Yadav's Gopalganj To Raisina: My Political Journey.
In a veiled attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Rashtriya Janata Dal's Lalu Prasad Yadav, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday accused opposition leaders of demonstrating a 'Mughal mindset' and "teasing" the people of the country by consuming non-vegetarian food in the holy month of Sawan and posting a video of it online.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said his party's alliance with the Congress is 'off to a good start' with 11 'strong' Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.
The image of him embracing Lalu Prasad Yadav having gone viral, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday sought to defend his anti-graft credentials saying it was the RJD chief who "pulled and hugged him", and it did not amount to an "alliance".
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.
Prasad can still influence the power play in Patna if not change it, reports Satyavrat Mishra.
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