Eight people, including inmates and prison, were injured in a scuffle that broke out at Patna's Beur Central Jail as some prisoners led by convicted former MLA Anant Singh protested over their ward being "deliberately kept open".
'We have been struggling with problems, but we want to elect Tejashwi to see him as the next chief minister.'
'It is people, their support and strength that made him a Bahubali.' 'I am proud of my father, who is innocent and wrongly framed.'
'The seats which we would be contesting have been identified. Respective candidates have also been finalised. Four non-performing sitting MLAs will be replaced with fresh faces.'
Electoral fortunes of 1,302 candidates, including over half a dozen ministers in the Nitish Kumar government, will be sealed on Tuesday with 3.70 crore voters eligible to exercise their franchise across 122 assembly segments in the second and final phase of the Bihar polls.
Yadav died at Khushhalchak village three days ago during election campaigning. An assailant reportedly shot him, and an SUV crushed him, officials confirmed.
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.
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.
'Nitish Kumar may take a decision to dump the BJP alliance by November.'
Meet the maverick serial election contester who shares his name with current Bihar's best known politician.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
'The Congress has faded and fighting for survival.'
Mahto and Yadav, who were reportedly charged with minor offences, were claimed to be serving Lalu as helper and cook.
'This will be a close election. At least now, it appears that the NDA has an edge.'
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.
Yadav, however, did not elaborate on what he meant by people playing politics with him.
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."
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.
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.
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'.
'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.'
'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.'
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.
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.
'Talking about boycotting polls is simply a move to galvanise party leaders, workers, and supporters for the big political fight.'
'The RJD is a family centric party and its top leadership's main concern is only to promote the family.'
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.
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.
