Gopalkrishna Gandhi also called up Kumar to say thanks.
National Democratic Alliance Convenor Sharad Yadav, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, BSP member Dara Singh Chauhan and RJD leader Lalu Prasad claimed that the inclusion of caste in census at the biometric stage amounted to befooling the people.
Notwithstanding the strains in their relations with Bharatiya Janata Party, Janata Dal-United will fight next year's elections in Bihar in alliance with the saffron outfit, party's national President Sharad Yadav said on Saturday.
Manjhi has called planned JD-U legislature party meet an unauthorised one.
Opposition-sponsored Bharat Bandh against price rise on Monday did not evoke much response in New Delhi barring some areas where BJP and Left activists blocked road and rail traffic and forcibly shut shops.
Abhay Chautala said that Banerjee has told him that she had some preoccupation on that day and she will depute a senior leader of her party for the event while Thackeray told him that if he is unable to attend due to some reasons he will send a senior leader for the event.
There is a strong possibility of opposition parties coming together to fight the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on Monday, stressing that he has had good talks with them and many will join hands gradually.
Seeking to create a pressure group in the ruling United Progressive Alliance to take on the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Tuesday called up Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav and Dravida Munetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi.
There were discussions on issues like inflation, unemployment and 'deliberate attempts' at some places to encourage communal forces, Pawar told reporters in Baramati town in Maharashtra.
'Nearly 16 years after the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations, the OBC representation in government (jobs) is as low as 5-6 per cent, only 1 per cent more the level before the reservation, since most of those who can avail of the reservation have been kept out. "Yeh patli chhachh hai, creamy layer kahan" (this is thin buttermilk, not the creamy layer).'
While people voted in a fifth round that will set the tone as this election rounds into the straight, and while Modi on the stump chews the cud of personal grievances and hackneyed promises that have long since passed their use-by date, there is a rogue wave rising -- what damage it will do, we will know 16 days from today, observes Prem Panicker.
Bihar is no stranger to being at the centre of a tectonic shift in national politics fuelled by turbulent regional forces.
Top leaders of BJP-led National Democratic Alliance chalked out the strategy for a nation-wide strike call tomorrow against the government's "failure" to control price rise.
Amid a spat between Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi, Janata Dal -United President Sharad Yadav cleared the air saying the party's alliance with the BJP in Bihar would continue.
The delegation also demanded an inquiry into the scam, which was exposed by a TV channel. The leaders claimed that the documents prove the involvement of Lalu, Union Ministers Premchand Gupta, Kanti Singh and Raghunath Jha in the scam.
The issue was raised by Janata Dal (United) chief Sharad Yadav who alleged that the government lost as much as Rs 1 lakh crore (Rs 1 trillion) because of 'wrong policies' of the telecom department while Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Basudeb Acharia dubbed it as the 'biggest scam'.
Shekhawat was accompanied by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and other NDA leaders.
The forum, which constitutes 40 OBC lawmakers, including Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, Dausa MP Sachin Pilot and JD-U leader Sharad Yadav, termed the creamy layer criterion put forward by the Supreme Court as a 'conspiracy'.
Soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party declared on Thursday that Asom Gana Parishad has joined the National Democratic Alliance and announced a seat-sharing pact between them in Assam, the regional party's chief denied joining the alliance saying the relationship is confined to sharing of seats only.
Though the Bharatiya Janata Party has managed to forge an alliance with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha for government formation in Jharkhand, there is no clarity as of now on whether the Shibu Soren-led party will become part of the National Democratic Alliance.
According to sources, Congress managers are attempting to fix a meeting between Sonia Gandhi and Mayawati. Congress is hopeful that Mayawati will support any government other than BJP, even though the BSP supremo had lashed out at Congress throughout her campaigning.
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Gandhi, then a newly appointed Congress chief, had staked claim to form the government at the Centre after the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had lost the vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha on April 17, 1999.
India's sugar exports are expected to cross 1.5 million tonnes in the sugar season that began in October 2002, Food Minister Sharad Yadav said on Wednesday.
The outspoken Lok Sabha member from Patna Sahib, in a no-holds-barred assault on the Modi government, said its ministers were a "bunch of sycophants" 90 per cent of whom were hardly known to people.
According to a senior Congress leader, the constituents of the opposition alliance intend to move forward with the theme "Main Nahin, Hum (We, Not Me)" at the meeting.
Janata Dal United President and National Democratic Alliance convenor Sharad Yadav tells Aasha Khosa about the issues the alliance will raise during the coming Lok Sabha elections.
The EC, in its order issued on Friday said the group led by Nitish Kumar is entitled to use the reserved symbol 'arrow'.
The opposition alliance has taken exception to Union Law Minister H R Bhardwaj's statement on Tuesday that the earliest the polls could be held in the state was in September.
It is shocking story of chalta hai (take it easy) attitude of the state and Central government that has caused such misery to people of Bihar. By all accounts, Kosi has not fully flooded yet, says a source in Kathmandu who has visited the area. If more rains hit the area in September then, the situation will be more dangerous than it is now.
As part of the efforts to bring several opposition parties together on a common platform to defeat the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Pawar met Kharge on Thursday evening.
Fernandes has said that a lot of delegates were appointed without organisational elections.
Last ditch efforts have been mounted to avert a contest in the battle for Janata Dal (United) presidentship in which Parliamentary Board chairman Sharad Yadav appears to have an edge over incumbent George Fernandes.
Gandhi also took a potshot at the RSS, saying it was bent on changing the country's Constitution.
Her lone engineer son, Nishant, lit the funeral pyre. Manju Sinha died in a private hospital in New Delhi on Monday after a prolonged illness.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday met Rahul Gandhi at his residence in New Delhi as the talks on alliance to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar polls gained momentum.
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