Former Railway minister Lalu Prasad was on Sunday elected unopposed as the national president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) for the seventh consecutive term.
Three different invitations were sent out for the wedding and the receptions with top-run guests being sent a large red box that contained an intricate chest incorporating a mini silver temple featuring gold idols of various Hindu deities, including Lord Ganesh, Radha-Krishna, and Goddess Durga.
With the reality of coalition politics staring the BJP in its face, this was inevitable, points out Ramesh Menon.
Other prominent candidates among the 904 in the fray are Union minister Anurag Thakur, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti.
>Rohini Acharya, Lalu Yadav's daughter who donated her kidney to her father in December 2022, is on her introductory campaign trail in the constituency that has been represented by her father four times.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi will have the final say on the selection of the next President of the country and the Rashtriya Janata Dal will go along with her choice for the top post, its chief Lalu Prasad said.
Forty-two of the 102 Lok Sabha seats going to polls in the general election's first phase are constituencies that have three or more candidates facing criminal cases, according to a poll rights body.
A party, which is recognised as a 'state party' in four or more states, would be declared a 'national party', provided it keeps up that position in subsequent general election to the Lok Sabha or the assembly. The party, which has a lantern for its symbol, may lose its national party status following its poor show in last year's Jharkhand assembly polls.
BJP heavyweights Smriti Irani, Arjun Munda, Ajay Mishra Teni and Kailash Chaudhary were among the 13 Union ministers who tasted defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states forced the BJP to rely on allies to form the government.
'Dynastic politics has become a tool of convenience for political parties. The BJP does not hesitate to accept it when it comes to its own alliance or party candidates. The same goes for the others.'
This will be the first time the BJP has got more seats than Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led JD-U in Bihar, underscoring the change in their equations after they joined hands a few months back.
As many as 12 MLAs of the Congress have threatened to boycott the upcoming state assembly session from February 23 and head to Jaipur if the ministers are not replaced with new faces.
Resolving to take the debacle in the Lok Sabha elections in its stride, the Rashtriya Janata Dal legislature party on Tuesday expressed 'unflinching faith' in the leadership of its president Lalu Prasad.
'It seems that Modi ji has some hand in the EVMs'
Acting on a tip-off, the police raided two houses and the RJD's office and took them into custody while they were trying to flee, Sanjay said.
Chosen for the country's highest civilian award Bharat Ratna a day ahead of his birth anniversary, Karpoori Thakur has been the veritable 'Jan Nayak' or people's hero of politics in Bihar, whose legacy parties cutting across ideologies seek to claim.
RJD MLA Raj Ballabh Yadav, who has been accused of raping a minor, was on Sunday suspended from the party. M I Khan/ Rediff.com reports from Patna.
Reacting to the incident of a police sub-inspector being mowed down by a tractor carrying illegally mined sand in Jamui, Bihar Minister Chandra Shekhar said that the incident is nothing new and asked whether such incidents did not happen in other states.
Lok Janskati Party president Ramvilas Paswan on Friday said he fails to understand why Congress is "dithering" to join the Rashtriya Janata Dal-LJP alliance which is intact in spite of sentencing of Lalu Prasad.
Leaders of several Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties met on Saturday to take stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and claimed they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
Responding to allegations that victory certificates were not been handed over to candidates from the opposition grand alliance by returning officers on 119 seats, the Commission said the latest figures on its website state that while 146 results have been declared and trends of 97 other seats were available.
The alliance leaders are getting together for the third round of the brainstorming session in Mumbai, after Patna and Bengaluru, to chalk out their common campaign strategy to take on the NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP is accusing Laloo Prasad Yadav's RJD of 'sabotaging' the prospects of its candidates in the Lok Sabha polls.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal on Saturday announced its support for Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief Shibu Soren in forming the next government in Jharkhand after the resignation of incumbent Madhu Koda.Prasad also dismissed the recent statement of Koda in which he had said he was not joining any government and had dubbed the current political situation 'ill-timed and unnecessary' as just an outburst.
A local court on Monday issued arrest warrants against suspended Rashtriya Janata Dal MLA Raj Ballabh Yadav and three others in connection with a rape case involving a minor.
Reacting to the grand old Congress party's decline to the 'pran-pratishtha' ceremony invitations of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya, Digvijaya said that the ruling party had turned the event into a BJP and VHP event.
Mohammed Afroze shot into limelight after being arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
The notices were issued to ten RJD leaders including Union minister Akhilesh Prasad Singh and MP Sadhu Yadav for arranging a dance by bar girls and playing loud music beyond the permitted time.
The sources said the opposition leaders would now plan joint rallies that were put on hold due to the assembly elections.
BJP state president Mangal Pandey said that Sunil Kumar and Renu Kushwaha have joined the party and RJD MLA Braj Kishore Singh has joined the party.
Main opposition in Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal, on Tuesday accused Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of implementing a "secret agenda" of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha by "cheating and befooling" Muslims in the state.
The Nitish Kumar government in Bihar on Tuesday announced 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections (EWS) in the judicial services, and the state-run law colleges and universities.
'We want to strengthen hands of Modiji and sure that LJP (Ram Vilas) will contest polls as an ally of NDA.'
The opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will hold a 'maha rally' at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan on March 31 to safeguard the country's interests and democracy, Aam Aadmi Party leader Gopal Rai said on Sunday.
Seventy-seven MLAs were present in the assembly during the voting.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal Legislature Party met in Patna on Wednesday evening and decided that its 22 MLAs would cast first preferential vote to for United Progressive Alliance Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee in the polls on Thursday.
'Despite being Bihar chief minister twice and an MLA for over three decades, he and my mother used to stay in a jhopri in our village.'
The Rashtriya Janata Dal legislature party on Saturday decided unanimously to vote for United Progressive Alliance's candidate Pranab Mukherjee in the presidential polls to be held on July 19, the party's national president Lalu Prasad said. At the RJD legislature party meeting held at former chief minister Rabri Devi's residence, it was unanimously decided that all 22 Members of Legislative Assembly of the party in Bihar and five in Jharkhand would vote for Mukherjee.
Several BJP leaders recalled Kejriwal's claim of probity and past allegations of corruption against politicians, including Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar among others, while seeking their arrest, as they claimed that he has been exposed now.
"The Nitish Kumar government is an announcement government; Befooling people without fulfilling any promise in last one year," the RJD leader said.
