A meeting of opposition leaders from many anti-Bharatiya Janata Party parties, most of them regional forces, hosted by the veteran leader and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Tuesday is being seen by political pundits as a beginning of an exercise by them to join forces to put up a more cohesive challenge to the saffron party.
In Bihar, Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad have come a long way from being bitter rivals for over two decades to friends with benefits. Their grand alliance along with the Congress, has won them six of the 10 assembly seats in the by-elections on Monday.
Five of the six Lok Janshakti Party MPs in Lok Sabha have joined hands against their leader Chirag Paswan and elected Pashupati Kumar Paras, the youngest brother of Paswan's late father and party founder Ram Vilas Paswan, in his place, causing a big churn in Bihar politics.
Bihar assembly speaker Uday Narain Choudhary, who is contesting Lok Sabha polls from the Jamui seat, refuted on Friday that he entered into a pact with the Maoists for their support to win the election.
Many eyebrows were raised in Bihar on Monday as news broke of a meeting between Communist Party of India's rising star Kanhaiya Kumar and Ashok Choudhary, a minister and key aide of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
Eight Congress MLAs skipped the proceedings, defying a party whip.
The performance of Janata Dal-United has down compared its performance in the 2015 elections and the ruling party could not win even half of the number of seats it contested in this election.
In the caste ridden politics of Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad's two sons and daughter and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan's son, are star campaigners for their party.
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.
A statement issued by his party said'NDA will achieve spectacular success in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls in Bihar if these are fought projecting Kushwaha as the leader of the coalition.'
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.
The formula of Lok Sabha polls this year wherein JD-U and BJP had both fought 17 seats each, leaving six for Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party, which joined the National Democratic Alliance in 2014, a year after Kumar's exit, could not serve as the basis for the assembly polls, said the poll strategist.
Shatrughan Sinha and Kirti Azad certain to be axed along with Union minister R K Singh and former minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy.
The victory was marked with the support of 32 of the total 60 MLAs in the assembly.
Amid signs of chill in Lok Janshakti Party leader Chirag Paswan's ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Sunday reached out to him for aligning with the Opposition, saying he can carry forward his father Ram Vilas Paswan's legacy only by joining the 'existential fight' against Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideologue M S Golwalkar's thoughts.
Amid indications of unease between his party and RJD, LJP president Ram Vilas Paswan on Wednesday met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi to urge her to take the lead in finalising the alliance in Bihar as "clarity" was required on seat-sharing among the allies.
In his letter to Kumar, the veteran leader has made a series of suggestions including an amendment in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act, bringing Lord Buddha's begging bowl from Kabul and hoisting tricolor at Vaishali, the land of world's first Republic.
Taking a dig at BJP chief Amit Shah over his claim that his party will rule for the next 50 years, he said, "Forget 50 years, people will give their verdict in 50 weeks."
Chirag, like many other leaders who have lost control of their parties, underestimated the adversary.
Refusing renomination to 14 more sitting MLAs, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday night came out with its second list of 99 party candidates for Bihar assembly polls.
'Hurt' at the Bharatiya Janata Party's silence while he battles challenges from within his party, Lok Janshakti Party leader Chirag Paswan said on Tuesday his relations with the saffron party cannot remain 'one-sided' and he will consider all possibilities about his future political steps if attempts to corner him continue.
Accompanied by Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala and other leaders of the Grand Alliance, Yadav made a scathing attack on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi, asking who gave permission to the Munger police to act like 'General Dyer'.
A purported video of Lok Janshakti Party president Chirag Paswan rehearsing for a video message a day after the death of his father, one of the foremost Dalit leaders Bihar produced after Jagjivan Ram, has gone viral.
Family and politics are often synonymous in India - no matter what party you talk of - and Bihar is no exception.
M I Khan in Patna Nearly twelve years after he left the National Democratic Alliance and resigned from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government after the Gujarat riots in 2002, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan will share the dais with Gujarat Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi at his 'hunkar' rally in Bihar's Muzaffarpur town on Monday. Paswan, who joined the NDA last week to contest the Lok Sabha polls and took a U-turn on Modi, will appear in public with the BJP's top brass including Modi at the rally. Paswan's son Chirag will also be present at the function. Upendra Kushwaha is another new face that will be at the event. Kushwaha is the chief of the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) that joined hands with the BJP last week. Both Paswan and Kushwaha are known as their own caste. Paswan is said to enjoy overwhelming support of his caste -- locally known as Dusadh, the only Dalit caste in Bihar after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar categorised 21 other Dalit castes as 'Mahadalit' -- poorest of the poor. Kushwaha has been trying hard for last few years to emerge as a leader of his caste -- Koeri, an agrarian backward caste spread across the state. A senior BJP leader said that presence of Paswan and Kushwaha will send a strong political massage among respective castes in Bihar. "It will strengthen the BJP's social support base in Bihar," he said. In Bihar, the BJP is widely seen as an upper caste party. The much-hyped rally is seen as a bid to mobilise support and strengthen the support base in the state. The state in the Hindi heartland that sends 40 Lok Sabha members to Parliament is politically very important. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the party had won 12 seats, while the Janata Dal-United won 20 seats, when they had contested as a combined force. It is expected that Modi will target Kumar, who has openly opposed him by repeatedly saying that the prime ministerial candidate should be of nsecular credentials.
Janata Dal-United President Sharad Yadav was on Thursday elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Bihar, but in two other seats, the party's official candidates were facing stiff challenge from Independents backed by rebels and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
On Friday, Paswan had said "any uneducated person becomes chief minister nowadays," in a veiled jibe at Rabri Devi.
'A one-party State is not possible in a diverse country like India.'
Absence of name of actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha as BJP candidate from Patna Saheb seat on Friday caused heartburn among his supporters even as a large number of party legislators are angry over selection of "turncoats".
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)."
Both the BJP and the JD-U abetted the LJP split but interestingly, independently. And there hangs a tale of conflicting interests, gamesmanship, subterfuge, and retribution, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
"I agree that the Ganga has caused loss, but there is profit in it as well," Lalu said.
After a meeting of LJP leaders at Paswan's residence in New Delhi, former MP and party leader Surajbhan Singh told reporters, "The alliance between LJP and BJP has been finalised."
'...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 of votes will be held on Thursday for 51 assembly seats and two Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 18 states where by-elections were held two days ago.
Kumar insisted that allies should have been given proportional representation in the cabinet.
The prime minister may go for new faces with an eye on grooming younger leaders while also factoring in caste and regional balances
This is part of an initiative to include all sections of the society in polling process and the EC has identified a booth in southern Kolkata.
There are also over 10 million voters in the 18-29 age bracket. Winning them over could be Nitish Kumar's biggest challenge, reports Aditi Phadnis.
Paswan also said that BJP leaders were free to throw barbs at the LJP, as part of their "coalition dharma", but he would always hold Prime Minister Narendra Modi in high regard.
