Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav on Thursday said that only Shatrughan Sinha and Shahnawaz Hussain are secular leaders in the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Kumar said that Rahul Gandhi's claim that the caste survey in the state was held under the Congress' pressure was 'nonsensical'.
Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Monday demanded the resignation of Bihar assembly Speaker Udai Narayan Choudhry for allegedly violating Constitutional norms by seeking support for the Mahadalit rally organised by ruling Janata Dal-United.
The State government had appealed against the Central Bureau of Investigation's court verdict after the CBI, which investigated the case, decided not to challenge the acquittal.
According to a statement issued by JD-U national general secretary Afaq Ahmed Khan on Tuesday, this is the party's first list of candidates for Madhya Pradesh, where voting will take place for the 230-member assembly on November 17.
Tej Pratap, the RJD chief's elder son said that "the numbers could swing as voters' mood is also not quite clear at the moment".
Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad has threatened to lead a protest in support of the hiking of salaries and additional benefits of Members of Parliament.The Union Cabinet had deferred the decision on the proposed three-fold salary hike because there was no consensus.On Monday, Lalu Prasad slammed opponents of the raise as 'crorepatis' who were not aware of the ordinary Member of Parliament's plight. The proposal, pending since May 2006, seeks to hike MPs' salaries.
Railway Minister Lalu Prasad is seen as an astute politician and a rustic crowd puller by many of his countrymen, but a group of young management students from the US on Saturday gave him a new tag -- a good manager.
Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Tuesday said he would hand over to President Pratibha Patil on Wednesday a letter withdrawing support to the United Progressive Alliance government, over the issue of the Women's Reservation Bill, while SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav remained non-committal on the issue.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
The development followed the arrest of chartered accountant Rajesh Kumar Agrawal by the ED.
A Special Central Bureau of Investigation court in Patna on Thursday framed charges against Bihar's former chief ministers Lalu Prasad and Jagannath Mishra, along with 32 other accused, in the multi-crore fodder scam case. According to court officials, the CBI court framed charges against Lalu, Mishra and others including former Member of Legislative Assembly R K Rana and Janata Dal United Member of Parliament Jagdish Sharma.
Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Friday reacted strongly against Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah's 'crackers in Pakistan' remark, saying it was an insult to the people of Bihar.
Former Bihar Chief Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav on Sunday said Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani will never become the prime minister of the country.
'Despite being Bihar chief minister twice and an MLA for over three decades, he and my mother used to stay in a jhopri in our village.'
'Nitish Kumar has no vision for the people of the state. He also had no justifiable reason for ditching us and going back to the BJP-led NDA'
A party, which is recognised as a 'state party' in four or more states, would be declared a 'national party', provided it keeps up that position in subsequent general election to the Lok Sabha or the assembly. The party, which has a lantern for its symbol, may lose its national party status following its poor show in last year's Jharkhand assembly polls.
The sources said the opposition leaders would now plan joint rallies that were put on hold due to the assembly elections.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal on Thursday alleged a political conspiracy by the Bharatiya Janata Party and Janata Dal-United behind the sentencing of Lalu Prasad but ruled out the possibility of a change in party leadership, saying its chief will be out on bail soon.
Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has criticised the Maharashtra government's recent decision to grant taxi permits to only those drivers who are well versed in Marathi and have resided in the state for at least 15 years. Most taxi drivers in Mumbai are migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.Lalu alleged that the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine was 'going the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena's way".
RJD chief Lalu Prasad's elder son Tej Pratap Yadav, was interrupted twice by Governor Ram Nath Kovind and asked to repeat after he misspelled a part of the oath.
The tax department had attached about a dozen plots and buildings in Delhi and Bihar.
With Lalu Yadav's conviction in the fodder scam case, an alliance between the Congress and Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United should have been easier, but that may not be the case. Lalu and his militant Yadav clan will not make way for the two parties so easily, says Sheela Bhatt.
'The Congress should have played a more active role to take care of the needs of regional parties. It failed.' 'Taking this into account, Nitishji took the final decision with the full support of the JD-U.'
Admitting the appeal of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad against the special Central Bureau of Investigation court's verdict in the fodder scam, the Jharkhand high court on Friday directed placing before it all records of the lower court pertaining to the case.
'Wrong feedback was given against Parasji to the top BJP leadership in New Delhi by a senior BJP leader, who is also a Union minister from Bihar.' 'He deliberately provided wrong information about the RLJP to the BJP leadership to help Chirag Paswan.'
Development economist Jean Dreze said the Indian democracy is currently navigating a crisis that is not only limited to the 'recent wave of authoritarianism' but also suppression of opposition voices by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Nitish Kumar government in Bihar on Tuesday announced 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections (EWS) in the judicial services, and the state-run law colleges and universities.
Bihar Education Minister Chandrashekhar reiterated that temples are the path to "mental slavery" while schools mean the path of light in life, extending support to party MLA Fateh Bahadur Singh whose similar statement drew the ire of a fringe outfit that announced a "reward" of Rs 10 lakh to cut off his tongue.
Kanhaiya will meet top non-Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and will visit his native village in Begusarai district to meet his parents.
"Our agenda is to make Indian Railways world's number one from the current third position," Railway Minister Lalu Prasad said.
On the quota for other backward classes in higher education, he said this was necessary to improve the lot of the downtrodden.
A R Rahman performed on the second day of the three-day bash to celebrate the 76th birthday of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Lalu landed in a soup after a news channel expose about a purported conversation with murder convict Mohammad Shahabuddin.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar utilised railway minister Mamata Banerjee's Rail Budget on Friday to fire another salvo at her predecessor Lalu Prasad saying the planned white paper on the present financial status of the railways would 'expose' his arch rival. Nitish, a former railway minister himself, said the white paper would unravel the truth behind Lalu's claims that Railways earned huge profits successively during his five-year tenure.
Kumar's comments quoting 16th century poet Rahim were seen as a veiled attack on Lalu.
