The debate over Presidential candidate picked up further momentum with Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad pitching for Vice President Hamid Ansari while other parties kept the cards close to their chest.
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.
Lalu also said that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has committed political suicide by joining hands with the BJP.
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
Lalu and his two minister sons, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav, sat in the VIP enclosure with others during the function.
In a letter to jailed RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, the veteran leader wrote he was quitting the party. "Since the death of Jannayak Karpoori Thakur, I stood behind you for 32 years, but not now," he wrote in his brief one-line resignation letter to Prasad, who is serving sentences in four fodder scam cases in Ranchi.
Sources close to Yadav said he had conveyed to Kumar his view that he was not keen on continuing after leading the party for 10 years and that a new person should be put in command.
Speculation is rife that Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United is likely to support the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance's choice for the upcoming Presidential poll. This ties in with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar's refusal to attend the meeting of non-BJP parties called by Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on May 26. The meeting will discuss the presidential polls and the way ahead for the opposition to tackle the BJP.
'Nitish Kumar may take a decision to dump the BJP alliance by November.'
Lalu landed in a soup after a news channel expose about a purported conversation with murder convict Mohammad Shahabuddin.
Bihar's ruling JD-U and Lalu Prasad's RJD on Sunday decided to contest the state assembly elections in alliance and constitute a six member committee to finalize seat-sharing.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said he wants the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance to win 400 seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls to ensure the Congress does not bring back Article 370 in Kashmir and put a 'Babri lock' on the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Upset over denial of ticket from the Patliputra Lok Sabha seat, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Ram Kripal Yadav, a close aide of Lalu Prasad, quit from all party posts but said he was in the party "as of now".
Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad will appeal in the Jharkhand high court against his conviction in a fodder scam case, his family said on Monday and alleged he had fallen victim to a 'conspiracy' by his rivals.
Post Nitish's exit, 17 parties plan to meet on Friday to formulate their future course of action. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has invited Sharad Yadav to join them, reports Archis Mohan.
Tejaswi Yadav spoke with Rediff.com about how he plans to wash clean the 'jungle raj' tag that has stuck with his father and former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.
There is a conspiracy to get Lalu murdered, but we will give a befitting reply to the centre, said Tej Pratap.
Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Friday rejected reports that he was not attending 'iftaar' party hosted by Congress President Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on July 13 over differences cropping up between the two parties.
Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Friday claimed that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had 'begged for forgiveness for past betrayals' before his parents, party supremo Lalu Prasad and ex-CM Rabri Devi, before they allied with the Janata Dal-United president in 2022.
'By making Rachel Rajeshwari, Tejashwi has done an exemplary thing.'
Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav had thrown barbs at the prime minister over his having no family.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been receiving invitations for functions scheduled much after the Lok Sabha polls, which showed the 'entire world believes his return to power is inevitable'.
Special Judge Arun Bharadwaj granted relief to Prasad after he was produced before the court through video conference from a Ranchi jail, where he is lodged in another case, as he was unable to come due to health reasons.
Notably, Yadav, the younger son of Rashtriya Janata Dal's founding president Lalu Prasad, had steered the 'Mahagathbandhan', which then did not have the chief minister on its side, to an impressive electoral performance in 2020 assembly polls in which the National Democratic Alliance could barely scrape through.
With the Congress down in the dumps and the BJP juggernaut on a roll, 'secular' parties are attempting to revive the Janata Parivar coalition to fill the vacuum.
Top leaders of the Opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) held talks in an informal setting in Mumbai on Thursday evening to chart out a concrete roadmap and evolve a structure for cooperation among the alliance partners to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
With uncertainty prevailing over 'Janata Parivar' constituents contesting the Bihar assembly polls as one party, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday asked Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav to convene a meeting of the merger committee to "clear the air".
'Rahul Gandhi's problem is that he doesn't think big.' 'He looks more like an activist, while politics is like a game of chess. You attack and then defend and have a game-plan.'
'Stalin's intention is plain and simple.' 'The DMK wants to convert what is an 'incumbency-centred' election for the party-led alliance into one more 'Modi/BJP election' after Stalin's successive success in 2019 and 2021, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
"This turmoil is created by the media," Prasad told reporters.
The two leaders, reports say, discussed the charges against Tejashwi.
The votes for the state assembly polls will be counted on November 10. Prasad is in judicial custody in Jharkhand capital Ranchi after his conviction in fodder scam cases. He was recently granted bail by the Jharkhand High Court in the case related to Chaibasa treasury but could not come out of jail as his bail plea in another case of fraudulent withdrawals from Dumka treasury is being heard.
A first information report has been lodged in connection with the theft of about 500 files of Bihar's animal husbandry directorate which are supposedly related to the multi-crore fodder scam.
Sons-in-laws of prominent politicians are rising against their in-laws, observes M I Khan
'When he was sidelined in the INDIA bloc, it was was the turning point because it badly hurt Nitish's ambition.' 'After that, he decided to damage INDIA by changing sides.'
The BJP blames Nitish's PM ambition for his decision to walk out of the NDA.
The JD-U leader rubbished speculations that he was maintaining an eloquent silence on the issue because of anxieties about tarnishing his own image for probity by aligning with "tainted" politicians and could even be thinking of breaking away with the "Mahagathbandhan", which besides RJD, also includes Congress and the Left.
Talking to reporters in Patna, the former Union minister asserted that he would happily function as 'an ordinary party worker, worth five rupees', if the JD-U leadership was assumed by 'anybody from among the Luv Kush Samaj (Kurmis and Koeris) or the EBCs whose aspirations have been the party's driving force'.
The young RJD leader is yet to earn the trust of the crowd and many senior party members believe he is no patch on his father.
Despite facing stiff opposition, two candidates from the ruling party in Bihar, the Janata Dal-United, have won the Rajya Sabha by-polls with the support of the Rashtriya Janata Dal party.
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