Patna Feb 20 PTI Lalu Prasads RJD has slammed its doors shut on the possibility of any understanding with the Congress its estranged ally for elections to 24 seats of the legislative council in BiharState RJD president Jagadanand Singh on Saturday announced its candidates for two seats having done the same for 21 others a week ago and declared that it was leaving one for the Left partiesElections to the two dozen seats vacant for quite some time are expected in March or AprilThe development came barely a day after Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra came out in support of Prasad who is in jail after conviction in yet another fodder scam caseHe was held guilty in the Doranda Treasury case by a special CBI court at Ranchi on February 15Three days later Vadra came out with a tweet in Hindi alleging that Prasad was a victim of BJPs political vendetta and praying for justice to the septuagenarian leaderPrasads son and heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav promptly replied with a thank youSpeculations were rife that the exchange of niceties in the virtual world would be followed by a softening of stance by the RJD which says it is committed to supporting the Congress at the Centre though finding it no longer worthy of an electoral collaboration in the stateTies between the RJD and Congress are two decades old and Prasads loyalists keep reminding those in the grand old party that their leader had come out in support of Sonia Gandhi when she was facing stiff opposition on account of her foreign originThe two parties along with the CPI CPIM and CPIML had formed a Grand Alliance to contest the 2020 assembly pollsThe RJD returned with the highest tally for any party in the state and the Left also performed beyond expectations though the five-party formation fell short of majorityThe blame was apportioned on the Congress which contested 70 seats but won fewer than 20 and RJD leaders have been accusing its junior ally of having been not serious in the assembly electionsThey have been pointing out that Vadra did not canvas in Bihar at all despite having been named a star campaigner while Rahul Gandhi took time off for only half a dozen rallies though Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a far greater number of election meetingsA flashpoint was reached when in October last year the RJD took a unilateral decision to contest by-polls for two assembly seats saying it did not want to lose the contest by leaving either seat for the CongressThe RJD lost both seats while the Congress has been licking its wounds alleging that the Grand Alliance was taken apart by the domineering ally and threatening to go it alone in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections PTI NAC RBT RBT

Patna Jan 23 PTI Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumars JDU on Sunday made a fresh pitch for grant of special category status to the state and vowed to hit the streets besides making itself heard in Parliament to press for the demandThe partys national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan came out with a series of tweets wherein he sought to assert that the state was not seeking charity from the Centre but wanted its rightful dueBy demanding special category status the people of Bihar are neither begging nor are they asking for a loan Lalan said in a strongly-worded tweet in HindiThe people of Bihar want from the Centre what is their rightful due We will keep lending our voice to them and raising the matter from the streets to the House sansad se sadak tak said the JDU chief who is also Lok Sabha MP from MungerHe also attached to his tweets a poster and a video enumerating the benefits that grant of special status is likely to bring in its wake and lamenting the non-fulfilment of the long-standing demandThe aggressive stance by the party comes close on the heels of a cold shoulder on the issue from the BJP its ally which also rules the CentreState BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal had last week virtually rubbished the demand for special category status by claiming that the central aid Bihar received was greater than what a more populous province like Maharashtra was gettingHe had also underscored that with the provision for grant of special status having been scrapped by the 14th Finance Commission and no recommendation for its restoration coming from the 15th the state must bide its time until needful approval comesThe demand for special category status to Bihar has followed its truncation in 2000 when the creation of Jharkhand deprived the parent state of its mineral reserves and industriesThe demand grew stronger when in 2009 Kumar held out an olive branch to the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre with a cryptic offer of support to any government that granted special status to BiharThe longest-serving chief minister of the state has been of the view that Bihar is saddled with numerous hurdles that come in the way of rapid economic growthThese include a very high density of population absence of coast line along its borders and vicissitudes of nature like floods and droughts hitting different parts of the state every yearIt has been Kumars view that special category status will provide the resource-starved state with a buffer and enable it to dole out incentives which attract investment PTI NAC RBT RBT

Patna Dec 27 PTI Police on Monday batoncharged used water cannons and waved pistols in the air to disperse hundreds of protesters who had gathered outside the Bihar BJP headquarters here in support of their demandsThe agitators comprised a large number of women many of them carrying babies in laps and demanding regularisation of their jobs as panchayat ward secretariesWe have been driven against the wall Many of us have offered our services despite not getting stipends on time The state government has added insult to injury with fresh vacancies It is a clear signal that we are going to be eased out they saidThe agitators had launched a dharna at Gardani Bagh nearly a fortnight ago Opposition leaders have in the mean time visited the site and expressed solidarity with their causeBuoyed by the support they on Monday gathered in front of the BJPs Birchand Patel Marg office demanding an assurance from Samrat Chaudhary the Panchayati Raj Minister who belongs to the partyIt was not known whether the minister was inside while the protesters were staging the demonstrationTempers flared up when policemen came and asked them to leave underscoring that no public gathering was allowed on the streetSome of the protesters said they will proceed for the assembly premises situated half a kilometer awayA scuffle ensued between the protesters and police personnel and the latter took recourse to lathicharge and water cannonsSome members of the police contingent were seen running after the crowd with their pistols whipped out of the holsterHowever no gunshots were fired police officers maintainedNormalcy was restored by the afternoon No FIR was lodged so far against those involved in the illegal demonstration PTI NAC RBT RBT

Patna Oct 31 PTI Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday expressed grief over the death of young Army officer from the state Rishi Kumar who was killed in a landmine blast in Jammu and KashmirIn his condolence message Kumar prayed for succour to the bereaved family members and announced that the last rites of the lieutenant will be conducted with full state honoursHailing from Begusarai district the 24-year-old was commissioned into the Army barely a year agoRishi Kumar was killed in a mine explosion near a forward post along the Line of Control in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday Union minister Giriraj Singh who also represents Begusarai in the Lok Sabha met the soldiers family to offer his condolencesThe family members are naturally crestfallen at the tragedy though they are also feeling proud that the young man had died serving the nation They are now awaiting his mortal remains after which a funeral can be held I have spoken to J-K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Kumar Sinha in this regard Singh told reporters PTI NAC RBT RBT

Patna Aug 30 PTI Reiterating that Nitish Kumar was Prime Minister material the JDU on Monday asserted it was not staking claim to the highest seat of power for the Bihar chief minister but numbers would be no problem if such a situation aroseA statement to the effect was made by the partys parliamentary board chief Upendra Kushwaha who testily brushed aside remarks by some leaders in the state BJP that one needed the support of 272 MPs to become the PM and that the JDU was unlikely to win as many seats on its ownKyun nahin ho sakta hai why not was Kushwahas curt reply when asked if Kumar were to aim for the top post would he be able to muster the requisite number in view of the limited reach of the JDU which has little presence outside BiharThe former Union minister however hastened to add we are not making a claim to the PMs post at present We are with the NDA and acknowledge the leadership of Narendra Modi But if people talk about a hypothetical future then nothing can be dismissed as impossibleKushwaha had rekindled sentiments about Kumar being PM material a few weeks ago and the chorus got louder on the previous day when Mission Nitish became the rallying cry at the JDU national council meeting hereOne of the resolutions passed on the occasion asserted that though not a claimant to the top post the leader had all the qualities for the sameWhen I first spoke about Nitish Kumar being PM material many of you scoffed at me Now you can see it has happened often that I say something and it becomes a widespread sentiment later on Kushwaha said with a mischievous smile referring to Sundays happeningsThe idea of Kumar fitting the bill first gained currency about a decade ago and following his radical move of snapping ties with the BJP in 2013 he was widely seen as a secular alternative to the juggernaut unleashed by Narendra ModiThe JDU de facto leader had however sought to make light of the utterances of Kushwaha who had parted ways seven years ago to float the RLSP but returned to the parent party a few months ago merging his outfit into itOn Sunday too the chief minister refused to reply to queries of journalists who were eager to know his take on the partys projection of him as a veritable cult figureKushwaha was also asked about the need for a coordination committee in the NDA which was stressed by JDU national general secretary K C Tyagi on the previous dayI met Tyagi ji at my residence this morning The demand is right There is a need for better coordination said Kushwaha whose reinduction into the JDU is being seen as Kumars bid to consolidate his Kurmi-Koeri base following the partys poor show in the assembly pollsIt is true that we are sharing power with the BJP for so many years Yet it does not look good when different people in the same party speak in different voices Caste census is a case in point remarked Kushwaha who had recently sought to underscore internal conflict within the saffron party on the issueSecond only to the BJP in the NDA in Parliament in terms of numerical strength the JDU has created ripples by forcefully taking up the issue of non-inclusion of OBCs in the census after the Centre disclosed that it proposed to enumerate only the SCs and the STsThe CM had recently met the PM heading a delegation comprising legislators of all parties in the state with the plea that the Centre consider their requestThe JDU national council meet among other things had also resolved to rally other states for the caste census demand which has so far been most vociferous in Bihar where the OBCs have dominated the political scene for close to three decades PTI NAC RBT RBT