Speculation intensifies regarding a potential political shake-up in Jharkhand's ruling coalition, fueled by strained relations between JMM, RJD, and Congress, and Chief Minister Hemant Soren's Delhi visits. Both JMM and Congress have denied the claims.
AIMIM's Bihar state president Akhtarul Iman, the party's lone MLA in the state, has written to RJD president Lalu Prasad, formally requesting inclusion in the grand alliance.
Meet the maverick serial election contester who shares his name with current Bihar's best known politician.
Gangster-turned-politician Dular Chand Yadav, once known for rubbing shoulders with the who's who of politics in Bihar, was allegedly shot dead near the state capital during an election campaign on Thursday, police said.
'Nitish Kumar may take a decision to dump the BJP alliance by November.'
Nitish thought that his stakes as chief minister were far greater than his stakes in protecting one of his party MLAs. He could not allow his rule-of-law train to be derailed by a small rock on the track. On the contrary, if he removed it to keep the train moving at a steady speed he would gain strong public admiration and sympathy that would help him take the masses along in carrying out other tasks. A fascinating excerpt from Arun Sinha's Nitish Kumar And The Rise Of Bihar.
Pappu Yadav has been asserting that he will contest the seat he had won thrice in the 1990s, with the claim of "assurances" from Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.
Tejashwi Yadav and Prashant Kishore claim that a group of senior Janata Dal-United leaders and retired bureaucrats, locally dubbed the 'Bhunja Party', manages the state administration on Nitish Kumar's behalf.
This divergence is likely to intensify political dynamics both within the party and across the state, particularly as the opposition Mahagathbandhan -- comprising the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress, and Left parties -- has been aggressively protesting the SIR and demanding its immediate scrapping.
'This will be a close election. At least now, it appears that the NDA has an edge.'
'The Congress has faded and fighting for survival.'
BJP state president Mangal Pandey said that Sunil Kumar and Renu Kushwaha have joined the party and RJD MLA Braj Kishore Singh has joined the party.
Yadav, however, did not elaborate on what he meant by people playing politics with him.
"I say that he (Sushant) was not a Rajput. Please don't mind but a Rajput who belongs to Maharana Pratap's clan cannot hang himself by a rope," Yadav said on Wednesday while inaugurating a newly-built road in Saharsa, his assembly constituency.
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.
RJD MLA Raj Ballabh Yadav, who has been accused of raping a minor, was on Sunday suspended from the party. M I Khan/ Rediff.com reports from Patna.
Mahto and Yadav, who were reportedly charged with minor offences, were claimed to be serving Lalu as helper and cook.
The former deputy chief minister was replying to queries about the JD-U president's outburst inside the assembly on Tuesday where he had told Yadav, "It was I who helped your father Lalu Prasad, the RJD president, become the leader of opposition when he did not have the support of even his own caste men."
'Without our support Nitish Kumar wouldn't have become chief minister.' 'After the government was formed we became ministers, but our agenda remained the same: Amit Shah had promised reservation for Nishads.' 'He wouldn't listen, so we went to UP and contested 52 seats in the 2022 elections. He didn't like the idea of rebellion.' 'He saw that this man, coming from Bombay, is very sharp. He's made four MLAs now, tomorrow he'll make 40. A time will come when they will make it 125.' 'They bought our MLAs and ousted us from the government.'
RJD president Lalu Prasad has expelled his elder son, Tej Pratap Yadav, from the party for six years for "irresponsible behavior" and snapped all family ties with him. The decision comes after a viral Facebook post claimed that Yadav, a former Bihar minister, was "in a relationship" with a young woman.
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
A day after the by-election results in Bihar, though leaders of the Rahtriya Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed victory after the RJD and BJP retained the Mokama and Gopalganj assembly seats respectively, the fact that both seats were won with a reduced margin indicates that there is nothing to celebrate for either party.
'The Congress has indeed become overly dependent on the RJD.' 'A few Congress leaders have successfully convinced the national leadership about the benefits of maintaining ties with the RJD.'
Lalan Kumar Paswan, who lodged the FIR with the vigilance department, held that the RJD chief's alleged act was tantamount to 'corruption' since, as a member of the legislative assembly, he was a 'public servant' whom Yadav had tried to entice away from 'performing the constitutional obligation of taking part in voting in the House'.
'Talking about boycotting polls is simply a move to galvanise party leaders, workers, and supporters for the big political fight.'
The BJP MLAs, who had staged a demonstration outside the assembly during the first half and marched to the Raj Bhavan during the lunch hour, were summoned by the speaker when the House reassembled at 2 pm.
Veteran Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Awadh Bihari Chaudhary was on Friday unanimously elected as speaker of the Bihar legislative assembly.
The party's state unit president Jagadanand Singh announced the names of Mohd Qari Sohaib, Munni Rajak and Ashok Kumar Pandey.
'The RJD is a family centric party and its top leadership's main concern is only to promote the family.'
Kushwaha made the exasperated remark in reply to queries from journalists about Singh's relentless, and often personal, attacks on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Chandra Shekhar's uncharitable remarks about Ramcharitmanas which triggered a controversy.
The legislator visited the residence of mother Rabri Devi on Tuesday evening, spent the night at her place and, according to party sources, announced that he will henceforth not be living at the bungalow allotted to him by the state government.
A careful calculation of the BJP's support base seems to have been at work in the cabinet expansion that took place a day after the party's national president chaired a meeting of the "core group" here.
Acting Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, in his first visit to the national capital after leading his ruling alliance to an unprecedented second straight term in the state.
All the winners in the assembly bypolls were from the respective ruling parties.
Tejashwi took the four MLAs to the assembly in a car he himself drove, in a gesture that was rich in optics as well as symbolism.
Terms of the two dozen seats had expired last year though elections were deferred because of a delay in Panchayat polls which could not be held in time on account of the COVID 19 pandemic.
The state cabinet can have up to 36 ministers, including the chief minister. The induction of ministers on Tuesday is expected to keep a few berths vacant for future expansion.
They had said they wanted to protest, while maintaining social distancing, against the attack on the family of a party supporter in which case a Janata Dal-United MLA has been named as an accused.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday won four seats in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha, while the Rashtriya Janata Dal retained the Mokama assembly seat in the bypolls to seven assembly constituencies in six states.
