Wait for a while before he does another somersault... But one thing is reasonably certain -- the twice betrayed BJP may not embrace him again, predicts Virendra Kapoor.
It's official now. After a gap of 23 years, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and senior Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar will share dais and jointly address public meetings on Monday for by polls in Bihar's Hajipur and Mohiuddinnagar assembly constituencies.
An estimated 57 per cent of the electorate cast their votes in the first phase of the Bihar assembly election in 49 constituencies on a violence-free note on Monday.
The term of the 243-member Bihar legislative assembly comes to an end on November 29.
Insiders say the BJP is now concerned the LJP putting up a good fight against the JD-U would mean benefitting the MGB in those seats. Moreover, Chirag and Tejaswi are known to be friends, and the former is battling for his political survival.
Shortly after the Union Budget was announced, political leaders from across the spectrum reacted to it. Here's what some of our leaders said.
If the BJP doesn't do as well as it is expected to, it might have to seek Upendra Kushwaha's help in forming a government for a price: the chief ministership
Ideology and principle are always put to work to camouflage political ambition. Nitish Kumar is a past master at this. His acceptance of the NDA in the first place was aimed at the top spot of Bihar. Then Delhi became the goal, but Narendra Modi's rise as head of the campaign rang alarm bells. So Nitish suddenly remembered secularism, says Jaya Jaitly.
All the drama from inside Bihar's legislative assembly.
The longest-serving chief minister of any Hindi- speaking state, Nitish Kumar seems to have acquired an aura of indispensability when it comes to the highest seat of power in Bihar.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's quest to strengthen its base in north India starts from Bihar, says Bharat Bhushan.
Modi's NDA is good enough to give a psychological boost to the once 'untouchable' BJP and Modi but if the NDA doesn't get a majority on its own, then walking the last mile will be the greatest challenge of this election for Modi, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
'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.
Kumar banged his table at Patna's Indian Coffee House as he announced this to an audience that was discussing alleged corruption in Bihar in 1977, writes Sankarshan Thakur in his biography of Kumar -- The Brothers Bihari.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi came under scathing attack from the Grand Secular Alliance on Sunday in poll-bound Bihar with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad and Congress President Sonia Gandhi accusing him of "insulting" the state and failing to deliver on any of his promises.
Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi sharpened his attack on Nitish Kumar, saying the Janata Dal-United leader's "arrogance" and "ambition" to become prime minister drove him to split from BJP, and compared the socio-economic conditions of Muslims in Gujarat and Bihar to claim he practised "true" secularism.
JD-U leaders believe Prashant Kishor's entry would benefit its case for contesting a larger number of seats in Bihar in next year's general election.
A "record" 57.59 per cent of over 1.46 crore voters cast their ballots in 55 assembly seats in Bihar on Sunday in the fourth and penultimate round of polling.
Biju Janata Dal members had staged a walk-out while NDA ally Shiv Sena did not participate in the voting.
Joining hands with his arch rival, Lalu Prasad Yadav, paid off for the Bihar chief minister
A series of bypoll losses has pushed the Modi government into panic mode. Uncharacteristically, it's letting events dictate its actions, says Shekhar Gupta.
n an exclusive interview with Rediff.com's Anita Katyal, Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmad analysed the political scenario in his home-state Bihar, admitting that political equations have changed after the Bharatiya Janata Party forged alliances with Ram Vilas Paswan and Upendra Kushwaha.
The party is counting on women voters and caste calculus, among others, to swing the crucial polls in its favour
Bharatiya Janata Party senior leader Sushil Kumar Modi talks to Satyavrat Mishra about the prospects of the party in Bihar. Modi says only the assembly elections or general elections are the true barometers of popularity. Edited excerpts:
'Akhileshji has to protect his political turf and if it means confronting his father, snapping ties with him and forming another party, so be it.'
'I am a labourer's wife, the mother of labourers. But I won't be a labourer's grandmother for sure,' she says in the hope that her grandchildren will have a bright future in the Bihar that will unfold in the next decade.
The results for the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Telangana, Maharashtra, Punjab and Tripura were announced on Tuesday.
With Lalu Yadav's conviction in the fodder scam case, an alliance between the Congress and Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United should have been easier, but that may not be the case. Lalu and his militant Yadav clan will not make way for the two parties so easily, says Sheela Bhatt.
'I hope the honourable PM and Mr Shah take steps to ensure that the NDA doesn't split.'
'The clearest interpretation of the November 8 mandate is that the backwards, Dalits and minorities, and a huge proportion of women cutting across caste and class, displayed massive consolidation to the extent that despite chipping of votes by the Left Front, by the Third Front and by the BSP, Mahagathbandhan candidates won, and in many cases by huge margins,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Everything was sacrosanct when the BJP was led by Vajpayee and Advani.' 'That was a different culture. But with Modi and Amit Shah nothing is sacrosanct.'
'Each of them is a setu (bridge) that links the government with the party, but their territories are different.'
'It is the RJD, otherwise known for misgovernance, which has offered a candidate of clean and performing credentials, rather than the NDA,' points out Mohammad Sajjad.
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