The 2020 assembly polls marked the coming of age of a politician who valiantly went down fighting an army of battle-hardened veterans.
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".
The Trinamool Congress and Nationalist Congress Party, have indicated that their party chiefs have better credentials for the post than the newly-elected Congress head, reports Archis Mohan
'The poor manner in which the RJD stitched its alliance and mismanaged its electioneering, now reveals that Tejashwi was more interested in enhancing his political stature by cutting down many senior leaders, by downsizing and shrinking RJD allies, by displaying arrogance and inaccessibility and by committing silly mistakes in candidate selection,' points out Mohammad Sajjad.
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.
Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu announced in the House that the election will be held at 11 am on August 9.
The man, who once lorded over Bihar, was pushed to the margins after the 2010 assembly elections.
Association of caste with the way people have tended to vote in Bihar has somewhat weakened.
As nominations for Rajya Sabha biennial polls closed on Tuesday, a contest is on the cards in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana even as Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram are among those set to be elected to the Upper House.
'We had never imagined that the prime minister could use such language to win votes.' 'I was under the impression that the prime minister is a very knowledgeable man, but I was amazed to find that he doesn't know that India's Constitution.'
"Any fight with the Congress will remain in the state. At the national level, we will fight together, this I am saying from the heart..." she said.
'The general idea is to unite all the anti-Modi parties into an alliance, to dent the PM's image as a vote-winner, and then stymie him in Parliament -- particularly in the Rajya Sabha -- in order to ruin his credentials as a reformer,' says T V R Shenoy.
'Nitish is now a helpless junior ally of Hindutva.' 'He just cannot think of reining in the hoodlums raging, marauding and killing in the mohallas,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
The Sensex ended down 251 points at 27,351 and the Nifty shed 65 points to close at 8,228.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expanded his Cabinet and inducted 21 new ministers. Of these, 4 - Manohar Parrikar, JP Nadda, Suresh Prabhu and Birender Singh were appointed as Cabinet ministers. Other than this, Modi has inducted 17 other ministers of state. Here's a quick look at them:
Nitish Kumar has failed to curb communal forces and hoodlums across communities. And that is ominous for Bihar's present and future, warns Mohammad Sajjad.
'Compared to other social groups, managing the Muslim constituency has always been easier for the secularists.' 'Just some symbolic measures and window-dressing would keep the Muslim flock together.' 'Having been betrayed by all the supposedly 'secular' political parties, Muslims should turn into citizens without any ascriptive identity marks,'says Mohammad Sajjad.