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.
Concealed beneath the feat, which testifies to his political acumen and survival instincts, is the fact that the 72-year-old leader could never remain at peace with his allies which also made him change partners frequently.
always say the same thing at the last rally in every election that 'ant bhala to sab bhala', says Nitish.
With jailed Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad disqualified as Lok Sabha member, ally Lok Janshakti Party President Ramvilas Paswan met Rabri Devi in Patna on Tuesday and mooted an alliance of secular parties, including Congress.
The political landscape of Bihar is set to change as the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party are in the final stages of putting together an alliance for the Lok Sabha polls.
Paswan's statement came on a day when he was excoriated by Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, who called the LJP leader a "vote Katua" (splitter of votes) and accused him of trying to create a confusion by harping on his equations with senior leaders of the saffron party.
Paswan headed a meeting of the party's parliamentary board from Bihar in which the state government was criticised for its over reliance on bureaucracy, with some LJP leaders claiming that Kumar is no longer a popular face, sources said.
With all rituals connected to veteran Dalit leader's death ending Tuesday, Chirag is all set to hit the political campaign now.
A video, beamed by news channels and portals, shows Mandal engaged in a spat with some fellow passengers who were objecting to his 'roaming around' in his vest and underpants.
Pawar pressed for forging alliances of anti-BJP parties at state level and favoured picking up the prime ministerial candidate after the election results, as happened after the 1977 and 2004 general polls.
Buoyed by exit poll surveys, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday claimed that it would form governments on its own in Haryana and Maharashtra, and stressed that it would not require support of the Shiv Sena to form government in the latter.
"Today, we stand united in solidarity with our security forces in fighting terrorism and in defending the unity and integrity of India."
The 19-year-old partnership ended after the ruling party refused to accede to the ally's demand for 17 of 81 seats.
Paswan, 70, was admitted to the hospital on Thursday after he complained of breathlessness.
JD-U MP Harivansh filed his nomination as the ruling NDA candidate to the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman's post and is likely to be elected, even as the Opposition is working to field a joint candidate against him to force a contest.
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.
'Giriraj Singh has told the central leadership that he is being made a target by some BJP leaders and some JD-U in a conspiracy to defeat him in the polls.'
Here are some of the big political leaders' who await their fate on Monday.
Paras, who was sworn in as a Cabinet Minister on Wednesday in the Narendra Modi-led government and made the Minister of Food Processing Industries, asked Chirag Paswan to do "self-introspection" about his mistakes.
Manjhi said Paswan has never raised a voice for rights of the Dalits and the poorest of the poor.
Lalu Prasad Yadav's wife Rabri Devi and daughter Misa Bharti lost from Saran and Pataliputra seats respectively in Bihar to BJP candidates. MI Khan reports.
Nishant is an engineer like his father. He is tech-savvy and likes to visit religious places as well.
Modi said Vajpayee would remain an inspiration and said the outpouring of emotions following his death despite his being away from public life for over a decade due to illness, shows his greatness.
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.
Rebel Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Ram Kripal Yadav met top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in New Delhi amid indications that he would cross over to saffron ranks ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
'A one-party State is not possible in a diverse country like India.'
"All your queries would be answered at an appropriate time," he told journalists.
'If people don't see you, they might be hesitant, but once they see you, they are confident that this is the person they will vote for,' says political debutant Shambhavi Choudhury, 25, alumnus of the Lady Sriram College and the Delhi School of Economics.
Das lost his seat to Independent candidate Saryu Roy by over 15000 votes. He said the BJP's failure to cling on to the alliance with AJSU is the reason for its loss.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its National Democratic Alliance partners - the Janata Dal-United and Lok Janshakti Party -- on Monday formally announced their alliance for the Delhi assembly polls, asserting that it will send a "strong" political message across the country.
A BJP leader in Bihar on Thursday died while taking part in a 'Vidhan Sabha march' against the state's Nitish Kumar government, evoking allegations from senior party leaders that he was "killed in a brutal lathi charge".
Paswan, who has chosen to plough a lonely furrow in the ongoing assembly elections, reiterated that the LJP was and will remain loyal towards the BJP, which was staring at the spectre of yet another "paltimaar" (volte face) by the JD-U president.
Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Arun Jaitley, J P Nadda and Prakash Javadekar were among the key leaders from the BJP at the meeting.
Rebel Lok Janshakti Party MP Pashupati Kumar Paras appeared to have scored a point on Thursday when he was unanimously elected as the new national president even as the faction headed by his cornered nephew Chirag Paswan dug in its heels and vowed to teach the 'traitors' a lesson.
More than two crore voters in Bihar will decide the fate of 1,066 candidates on Wednesday across 71 assembly segments in the first phase of elections.
'The BJP will use Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha to check Nitish Kumar.' 'They will not allow him to function freely as before.'
The RSS wants three nominees inducted: Tejaswi Surya, the young BJP MP from Bengaluru South, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, a Rajya Sabha member, and former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
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A day after reports surfaced about an alliance between the Lok Janshakti Party led by Ramvilas Paswan and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Bihar, a senior leader of the saffron party has strongly spoke out against any such tie-up.
"Every person who wants development in Bihar, wants unemployment and corruption to end in the state and wants migration to stop is voting for the candidates of BJP and LJP. "This time the people have voted for change and development. The feedback I am getting from my party candidates and workers clearly indicates that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar won't be able to retain his position after November 10. "BJP-LJP will form a new government in Bihar," Paswan said.
Gandhi had decided not to celebrate her birthday because of rape incidents and assaults on women in the country.
