The meeting comes as part of Paswan's efforts to seek support of like-minded parties in a bid to form a government in Bihar, now under President's rule.
Narendra Modi will take oath as the prime minister for a third consecutive term on Sunday evening as President Droupadi Murmu has invited him to form the government.
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.
They met at Modi's residence in New Delhi a day after the NDA won a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha election, paving the way for him to take the oath for a third consecutive term, a first for any ruling alliance since 1962.
Majority of these constituencies are in Uttar Pradesh and the party that is on the third slot even as the counting is still underway on several seats is the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party neither with the National Democratic Alliance nor the opposition INDIA bloc.
In the morning, he offered prayers at the Dashashwamedh Ghat and the Kaal Bhairav temple in Varanasi.
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.
Proceedings in the Rajya Sabha were disrupted briefly on Thursday when Lok Janshakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan demanded suspension of Question Hour to discuss the issue of rise in saffron terror in the country.
'Lalu is Lalu. His presence in the election campaign will make a difference for the Mahagathbandhan.'
The exercise for government formation in Bihar on Saturday gained momentum.
Fresh elections are the only solution to the Bihar impasse, CPI National Secretary D Raja said.
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.
Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Thursday ruled out any divestment in the companies under the ministry and said the department had not received any letter from the finance ministry over the issue.
Ruling out divestment in public sector units under his ministry, Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Thursday that the government would make all efforts to revive ailing enterprises like Hindustan Antibiotics Ltd.\n\n\n\n
On the efforts for a complete alliance among the United Progressive Alliance partners in Bihar, Lalu said there was no UPA in Bihar.
Lalu redicules the LJP chief, whose party might split, enabling NDA constituent JD-U to form government in Bihar.
It is absolutely wrong that the LJP is not averse to taking outside support from the BJP, he said.
The Supreme Court order that Bihar Government had no authority to challenge Lalu Prasad's acquittal in a disproportionate assets case has not gone down well with the ruling National Democratic Alliance in Bihar, though the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief and his Lok Janshakti Party counterpart Ram Vilas Paswan welcomed the verdict.
While Paswan and Singh were stopped at the Delhi-UP border, the LJP chief's younger brother and Lok Sabha member Ramchandra Paswan was taken into custody by the Uttar Pradesh Police. The leaders were going towards Greater Noida to disburse Rs two lakh as relief to the families of the victims of police firing last week.
Releasing his party manifesto for Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday said his party would contest on all 403 seats in the state.
Please promise, especially those millions who trust you with their hard-earned money, never to let your voting preferences determine your actions on the markets. The most appalling and scary phenomenon was fund houses and brokerages going out on election yatras and writing copious reports promising more than 300 for the BJP. That was your wish as voters. Your investors are paying for it now, points out Shekhar Gupta.
There is a view that heavyweight portfolios like home, finance, defence and external affairs besides education and culture, two ministries with strong ideological hues, will be kept by the BJP, while its allies can get anywhere between five to eight cabinet berths.
Expressing anguish over incidents targeting north Indians in Mumbai, Union Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Wednesday said he had written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the issue.
Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday fired a salvo at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and said that he should now enjoy the power as November 8 will bring an end to his delight.
The BJP had registered a one-sided victory on all the 17 SC-reserved seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. But in 2019, out of these 17 seats, it lost Nagina and Lalganj seats to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Terming north-Indians as the life-line of Mumbai, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Thursday said that anti-people forces like the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Shiv Sena were trying to divide the nation."Maharashtra has 57 per cent of north Indians who are toiling for the progress of the state and nation. MNS and Bal Thackeray would face a severe repercussion of their drive, to separate people, on the basis of region or language," said Paswan.
Amid deepening fissures in Kumar's ties with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, BJP leaders have indicated that they are open to tying up with him again.
The home ministry on Thursday announced the Padma awards which included five Padma Bhushan, 17 Padma Bhushan and 110 Padma Shri.
The investigation revealed the motive of the accused, identified as Ashish Kumar Dusadh, was to frame a man who had warned Dusadh to stay away from his sister-in-law, the Ahmedabad crime branch said in a release.
.jpg)
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.
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."
Consumers have to watch out for four marks on hallmarked gold jewellery: BIS mark, purity in carat, assay centre's name and jewellers' identification mark.
The first of the gigantic petroleum, chemicals and petrochemical investment regions - each of which is projected to attract investment of Rs 70,000 crore
A state-wide shutdown spearheaded by the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal Lok Janshakti Party combine in Bihar against the recent hike in fuel prices began on Saturday morning.Elaborate security arrangements have been made to prevent any untoward incidents. Essential services including hospitals, water supply and electricity supply have been exempted from the purview of the shutdown.The administration will try to keep all links to major towns open.
Shedding his discomfort with the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan on Thursday announced that the two parties, along with the Congress, would contest the next Lok Sabha elections jointly in Bihar.
Bharatiya Janata Party and Lok Janshakti Party on Thursday night stitched a pre-poll alliance with the Ram Vilas Paswan-led party returning to the NDA fold, 12 years after it quit over Gujarat riots, and it will fight seven out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar under a seat-sharing deal.
"I have already floated this idea to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Jan Morcha patron V P Singh and now the ball is in their court," Paswan, also the Union Steel and Fertilizers Minister, told reporters in Lucknow.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances