Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal-United and his bete noire Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav are not contesting the Lok Sabha polls which has put their 'prestige constituencies' of Nalanda and Patliputra at stake.
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.
Bihar's former deputy chief minister and senior party leader Sushil Kumar Modi explains the party's poll strategy.
Joining hands with his arch rival, Lalu Prasad Yadav, paid off for the Bihar chief minister
Known for weighing his options carefully before making any move, Kumar, upon a closer look, comes across as a risk taker who has not shied away from going against the tide.
Known for weighing his options carefully before making any move, Kumar, upon a closer look, comes across as a risk taker who has not shied away from going against the tide.
Manjhi, is the president of Hindustani Awam Morcha, an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.
'In Bihar, the Dalits are not a consolidated socio-political constituency,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi claimed on Saturday that he will become a 'supporter' of Prime Minister Narendra Modi if the PM would grant special category status to Bihar.
Jitan Ram Manjhi, who stepped down as the chief minister of Bihar on Friday, alleged that his legislators and ministers were given death threats ahead of the trust vote.
Will the M (Muslims) in the RJD's M+Y move fast swiftly towards the MIM and away from the RJD, asks Mohammad Sajjad.
Almost a fortnight after former bureaucrat K P Ramaiah took voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Service, he is ready to take on Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, a former Indian Foreign Service officer, in the Lok Sabha polls from the Sasaram seat in Bihar.
Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi who has come under attack of the Bharatiya Janata Party over reports of his son getting involved in alleged sexual escapade with a lady policewoman, on Saturday defended his son saying anybody could have a "girl friend".
'Maybe the BJP believes, in the post-poll scenario, it will have the might to foist, anybody endorsed by the RSS, upon Bihar,' observes Mohammad Sajjad.
Medhavi Kirti, the granddaughter of late veteran Congress leader Babu Jagjiwan Ram, has been campaigning against her aunt Meira Kumar, Lok Sabha Speaker and Congress candidate from Sasaram Lok Sabha seat in Bihar.
Hinting at the possibility of joining hands with former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi in Bihar polls, BJP prez Amit Shah on Tuesday said his party's doors are open for new allies.
Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi has initiated a move to develop his village Mahakar in Gaya district on lines of Kalyanbigha, the hometown of former CM Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad's Phulwaria.
HAM leader Jitan Ram Manjhi on Monday said statements of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat about a review of quotas could be one of the possible reasons for the NDA's debacle in the polls.
Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Friday said he has sought appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demand special category status for Bihar.
Bihar CM Jitan Ram Manjhi is set to meet PM Narendra Modi while attending the NITI Aayog meetings.
This incident has again exposed that despite prohibition being in force in Bihar, alcohol is still available in the black market and that the liquor mafia is very much active
Under siege, Nitish plans to tweak Bihar's anti-booze law
Firing yet another salvo at the Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena on Monday slammed its ally over the issue of supporting Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi saying backing him would be a "sin" as it would be an endorsement of "black era in politics".
In the same breath, the RPI-A leader said, "No one can challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- neither Congress president Rahul Gandhi, nor SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, nor BSP supremo Mayawati."
Ending days of speculation, senior Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar on Sunday said that Bihar's Jitan Ram Manjhi would continue as chief minister. "All speculations about Manjhi's removal were wrong," the former CM told the media soon after his return from New Delhi on Sunday.
Cautioning against forces which fan communal tension in order to polarise the situation in their favour, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday voiced concern over the Muzaffarnagar riots and said such violence cannot be allowed to spread.
Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi appears to be on the way out in the wake of his defiance as the Janata Dal-United is all set to replace him with his mentor Nitish Kumar at a meeting of the legislature party on Saturday.
The prestigious Pataliputra Lok Sabha seat will witness a contest between BJP's Ram Kripal Yadav, the long-time confidante of Lalu Yadav who recently quit RJD and joined the saffron front, and Lalu's eldest daughter Misa Bharti. M I Khan reports from Pastna.
M I Khan in Patna Nearly twelve years after he left the National Democratic Alliance and resigned from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government after the Gujarat riots in 2002, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan will share the dais with Gujarat Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi at his 'hunkar' rally in Bihar's Muzaffarpur town on Monday. Paswan, who joined the NDA last week to contest the Lok Sabha polls and took a U-turn on Modi, will appear in public with the BJP's top brass including Modi at the rally. Paswan's son Chirag will also be present at the function. Upendra Kushwaha is another new face that will be at the event. Kushwaha is the chief of the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) that joined hands with the BJP last week. Both Paswan and Kushwaha are known as their own caste. Paswan is said to enjoy overwhelming support of his caste -- locally known as Dusadh, the only Dalit caste in Bihar after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar categorised 21 other Dalit castes as 'Mahadalit' -- poorest of the poor. Kushwaha has been trying hard for last few years to emerge as a leader of his caste -- Koeri, an agrarian backward caste spread across the state. A senior BJP leader said that presence of Paswan and Kushwaha will send a strong political massage among respective castes in Bihar. "It will strengthen the BJP's social support base in Bihar," he said. In Bihar, the BJP is widely seen as an upper caste party. The much-hyped rally is seen as a bid to mobilise support and strengthen the support base in the state. The state in the Hindi heartland that sends 40 Lok Sabha members to Parliament is politically very important. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the party had won 12 seats, while the Janata Dal-United won 20 seats, when they had contested as a combined force. It is expected that Modi will target Kumar, who has openly opposed him by repeatedly saying that the prime ministerial candidate should be of nsecular credentials.
A day after his claims that a temple in Bihar's Madhubani district was washed and purified soon after his visit there for obeisance, Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Monday ordered a probe.
'Manjhi will be Kumar's biggest competitor inthe days to come'
Kumar will always be known as the reformer chief minister who brought governance back to Bihar.
Party's performance will also work as a catalyst in Uttar Pradesh elections.
The 'secularists'are more adept at the politics of intense and alarmingly exaggerated fear-mongering, as this kind of politics provides easy votes of Muslims without making them answerable for the concrete issues of poverty, unemployment, lawlessness, and of basic needs like roads, electricity, etc, which is exactly how Nitish Kumar was defeated in the elections, says Mohammad Sajjad.
An entirely preventable disease claimed the life of 173 children -- thanks to state apathy.
Munni Devi, the police claim, not only sheltered the killers, but was also a key conspirator.
'It is precisely because of the apprehensions about Lalu's revival that the upper castes have started re-thinking their electoral preferences. Out of confusion, they are simply deciding to vote for winnable candidates from their respective castes of any of the three parties -- the BJP, JD-U or RJD. This is what has considerably neutralised the NaMo wave in Bihar and resulted in Nitin Gadkari's remark that "Caste is in the DNA of Biharis". This is why Giriraj Singh, the BJP candidate from Nawada, made provocative statements,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
The BJP-ed National Democratic Alliance on Wednesday launched an all-out attack on the Bihar CM.
Nitish Kumar's decision to resign as the state chief minister was as dramatic as the time he decided to tie up with old foe Lalu in 2015.
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