Ram Kripal Yadav, who resigned from the Rashtriya Janta Dal after being denied a ticket for the Lok Sabha polls, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in New Delhi on Wednesday.
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".
"Lalu ji had madhur sambandh (cordial relations) with my father and political mentor Ram Vilas Paswan. I thank him for lending credence to my leadership. But, my current priority is the ongoing state-wide Ashirwad Yatra", Chirag told reporters in Patna.
Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad's wife Rabri Devi and elder daughter Misa Bharti will contest the Lok Sabha polls, the party's first list of candidates has revealed.
He had already been granted bail in the Chaibasa Treasury Scam case in October 2020, and in the Deoghar Treasury Scam case in February 2020.
Misa Bharati is fighting to win back Patliputra, the seat her father lost in 2009, in a contest that is a do-or-die battle for Lalu Yadav and the RJD.
Paswan, one of the most prominent Dalit leaders of the country who had been a part of several governments headed by rival parties, died on Thursday at the age of 74.
Lalu Prasad Yadav's wife Rabri Devi and daughter Misa Bharti lost from Saran and Pataliputra seats respectively in Bihar to BJP candidates. MI Khan reports.
Lalu Prasad and his Muslim-Yadav line has completely gone off track.
Appearing on national television to mark the silver jubilee of the party he founded in 1997 after breaking away from the Janata Dal, Prasad, who is suffering from many ailments and convalescing at his MP daughter Misa Bharti's residence in New Delhi, recalled his struggles for OBC quota and the fight for the rights of the weaker sections.
The announcement comes amid rumours that Tej Pratap would be causing a split in the party.
The post of Chhattisgarh governor was under the additional charge of Madhya Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel since August after the demise of Balram Das Tandon.
Former Union minister Ram Kripal Yadav was riding a contraption made with the help of tyre tubes tied to bamboo shafts, apparently on account of non-availability of boats, to cross the Dardha along with some of his supporters. The contraption was about a few yards from the shore when it tilted and all those aboard, including the MP, fell into the river.
"Stalin is the future of the party," said late Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam patriarch M Karunanidhi about six years ago at a party meet when his son was party treasurer.
Rashtriya Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad, touring the Pataliputra constituency has hit out strongly at his former close aide Ramkripal Yadav for joining the Bharatiya Janata Party. Prasad held a public rally at Bikram, 40 km southwest of capital Patna, late on Wednesday evening to garner support for the RJD candidate and her eldest daughter Misa Bharti.
However, Bharti later claimed that her call for unity among party workers was presented in a distorted manner.
Prasad can still influence the power play in Patna if not change it, reports Satyavrat Mishra.
Nitish 'sent his emissary, Prashant Kishor, to me on five different occasions.' 'Kishor seemed to indicate that if I were to assure in writing my party's support to the JD-U, the latter would pull out of the BJP alliance and rejoin the Mahagathbandhan.' A revealing excerpt from Lalu Prasad Yadav's Gopalganj To Raisina: My Political Journey.
Several MPs came to the Upper House wearing masks and demanded curtailment of the ongoing Budget session, which is due to end on April 3, in view of the novel coronavirus scare, but the government seemed unwilling.
The I-T Department has served notices of attachment of assets to Lalu's daughter Misa Bharti and her husband Shailesh Kumar, his wife and former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi, son and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and daughters Chanda and Ragini Yadav.
In the caste ridden politics of Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad's two sons and daughter and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan's son, are star campaigners for their party.
Days after their landslide victory in Bihar assembly polls, Grand Alliance leaders, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad, are celebrating Chhath festival at their residences.
The development followed the arrest of chartered accountant Rajesh Kumar Agrawal by the ED.
The feud in the family -- brother versus brother, sister versus brother, and daughter versus mother -- is an open secret. In the absence of the patriarch, there is no one to compose their differences, reports Satyavrat Mishra.
Rebel Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Ram Kripal Yadav met top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in New Delhi amid indications that he would cross over to saffron ranks ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
'The poor manner in which the RJD stitched its alliance and mismanaged its electioneering, now reveals that Tejashwi was more interested in enhancing his political stature by cutting down many senior leaders, by downsizing and shrinking RJD allies, by displaying arrogance and inaccessibility and by committing silly mistakes in candidate selection,' points out Mohammad Sajjad.
Tej Pratap and Aishwarya, whose father is a sitting RJD MLA and grandfather Daroga Rai was chief minister in the 1960s, had tied the knot in May at a grand ceremony.
RJD leaders and workers miss Lalu's rustic charm and unique campaigning style.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal with 19 seats, Congress on 9, Rashtriya Lok Samta Party on 5, Hindustani Awam Morcha and Vikassheel Insan Party -- in phases three to seven of the general elections.
After following Congress president Rahul Gandhi and the party's official Twitter handle, he began following senior leaders P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Ahmed Patel, Ashok Gehlot, Ajay Maken, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot and CP Joshi from this month.
However, Nishant has made it clear several times that he has no interest in politics like the children of other prominent politicians of the state.
The jailed Lalu Prasad may have put his wife, Rabri Devi, in charge of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, but there's a subtle jostling for ascendancy within the family, notes Satyavrat Mishra.
The jovial RJD chief, known for his earthy humours, apparently could not digest that his party drew a blank in its stronghold Bihar and also in the neighbouring Jharkhand.
The 2020 assembly polls marked the coming of age of a politician who valiantly went down fighting an army of battle-hardened veterans.
The probe agency had earlier attached a Delhi farmhouse in connection with its money laundering probe against Bharti and her husband, Shailesh Kumar.
The Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal MPs, including his daughter Misa Bharti and Manoj Jha, also staged a protest at Mahatma Gandhi's statue inside the Parliament complex and contended that despite being the chief opposition party in Bihar and the single largest party in the Assembly, it was not invited.
Lalu and Rabri were keen that he marry during the traditional marriage season, but he asked them to give him more time to make his mark in politics.
Rabri Devi, ex-chief minister of Bihar, wife of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad and their party's candidate from Saran, tells Kavita Chowdhury there's a wave for the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar and talk of a Modi wave is media hype.
Family and politics are often synonymous in India - no matter what party you talk of - and Bihar is no exception.
The Emergency greatly influenced the RSS' makeover from a fringe force in the Indian political imagination to one that could have its own man sworn in as prime minister in two decades' time. A riveting excerpt from Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil's India's First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975-1977.