Tag: JD(U)

NDA will Win All seats in Bihar Bypolls, Says Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan

Source: news18.com

New Delhi: BJP ally and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Friday that the ruling NDA will win all seats going to Lok Sabha and Assembly bypolls in Bihar on October 21, asserting that a “divided and discredited” opposition stands no chance.

Polls will be held in five Assembly seats and the Lok Sabha constituency of Samastipur as incumbent MLAs were elected to Parliament during the recent general election while MP Ram Chandra Paswan died of a heart attack.

All three NDA parties — BJP, JD(U) and LJP — are involved in the elections. While the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) is contesting in four Assembly seats, the BJP and the LJP have put up their candidate in an Assembly and the Lok Sabha seat respectively.

Ram Chandra Paswan’s son Prince Raj is fighting from Samastipur.

“All our candidates will emerge victorious. We have run a united campaign and people have full faith in the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Kumar,” LJP president Ram Vilas Paswan said.

The opposition ‘mahagathbandhan’ (grand alliance) is divided and discredited, he added.

With unity eluding the grand alliance, some of its partners have put up their candidates after its two main partners, RJD and the Congress, divided all the seats between them.

His party, he said, has also deployed its workers to campaign for the BJP in Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly polls. He expressed confidence that the saffron party will retain power in both the states.

RJD’s Raghuvansh Singh Joins Issue with Tejashwi Over ‘No Entry’ for Bihar CM Nitish Kumar

Source: news18.com

Patna: Fissures within the opposition RJD in Bihar came to the fore on Sunday when one of its founding members sought to join issue with the heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav over his proclamation of “no entry” for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar into the multi-party Grand Alliance.

Former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, one of the national vice-presidents of the RJD, spoke disapprovingly of the remark made by Yadav jailed founding president Lalu Prasad’s younger son at a meeting of the party’s minority cell here last week.

“It does not sound like a political comment. And where does the question of no entry arise when we have not yet received a request for entry, in the first place,” Singh told reporters, when asked about the stance adopted by Yadav, who has been declared the party’s chief ministerial candidate for next assembly polls.

He also remarked wryly that “people tend to initially disagree with every idea that I propose. They tend to concur six months afterwards.

Notably, Singh has been advocating Kumar’s return to the Grand Alliance – which the latter walked out of in 2017 since the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year in which the five-party formation managed to win just one out of a total number of 40 seats in the state.

The RJD, which was floated by Lalu Prasad in 1997, contested 19 seats but drew a blank in the Lok Sabha elections its worst-ever performance since inception.

The poll debacle led to question marks being raised over the leadership of Tejashwi Yadav, who spearheaded the campaign for the Grand Alliance which comprises, besides the RJD, the Congress, former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha’s RLSP, former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM and Bollywood set designer-turned-politician Mukesh Sahni’s VIP.

Allies like Manjhi have revolted, threatening to go it alone in the assembly elections due next year. Tejashwi Yadav, 29, went into a sulk after the Lok Sabha polls, refusing to attend party meetings and assembly session despite being the leader of the Opposition. He has shown signs of recovery from the shock with renewed interest

in political activities for the past few weeks.

He had made his political debut in the 2015 assembly polls which was followed by his appointment as Deputy Chief Minister at a tender age. His name, however, cropped up in a money laundering case relating to alleged irregular land deal under his father’s watch, when he was the Railway Minister from 2004 to 2009.

Nitish Kumar resigned as chief minister after the RJD refused to heed demands that the young leader step down. He formed a new government with the BJP, which promptly came up with an offer of support.

Kumar had made a made a veiled attack on Tejashwi Yadav a day after the latter made the “no entry” remark. “Some of their leaders come up with an idea. Somebody

else rises up and says no, it is not needed. Little do they realise that nobody is giving them any importance,” Kumar had said at the JD(U)’s state council meeting, without mentioning Yadav or his party by name.

He had also asserted that the NDA in Bihar, which also includes BJP and Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP, will win “more than 200” seats in the 243-strong state assembly.

With new poll symbol, Nitish to fight BJP in Jharkhand

Source: deccanherald.com

Nitish Kumar may be an ally of the BJP in Bihar but he will be contesting against the BJP Government in Jharkhand headed by Raghuvar Das during the Assembly elections in November this year.

The Election Commission has, however, allotted a new poll symbol to the JD(U) after the party’s existing symbol ‘arrow’ created confusion with the election symbol of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM). The JMM has ‘bow and arrow’ as its symbol.

Ever since Nitish decided to contest on all the 81 Assembly seats in neighbouring Jharkhand on its own, the JMM approached the EC to freeze the JD(U) symbol ‘arrow’ as it might confuse the voters in tribal-dominated State. After much deliberations, the EC recently allotted ‘farmer driving a tractor’ symbol to the JD(U).

Nitish earlier this month sounded the poll bugle in Ranchi where he came down heavily on the BJP Government in the State. “It’s around 19 years since Jharkhand was formed after bifurcating Bihar in November 2000. And the mineral-rich tribal State has witnessed virtually no development in the last two decades. On the other hand, ever since I took over the reins of Bihar in 2005, the State’s growth rate has increased by leaps and bounds,” said Nitish lashing out at his Jharkhand counterpart, although he refrained from taking his name.

It’s not only the JMM but Shiv Sena too, which had protested a similar election symbol of the JD(U). The Maharashtra-based party Shiv Sena too has ‘bow and arrow’ as its symbol and it protested to the EC when it came to know that the JD(U) would field its candidates during October 2019 Assembly polls in Maharashtra. “The EC has allotted ‘diesel pump’ as the election symbol to the JD(U) for Maharashtra Assembly polls,” said a ruling party source here in the state capital.

Ever since the JD(U) performed well in Arunachal Pradesh during the May 2019 elections (when it won seven Assembly seats in the N-E State), Nitish, who is also the national president of the JD(U), is in expansion mode of his outfit, aiming to get it a status of national party.

Bihar Oppn bogged down with many ideas on fighting NDA

Source: deccanherald.com

The Opposition in Bihar, still smarting under the crushing loss in all but one seat in the Lok Sabha polls, seems to be bogged down with too many ideas when it comes to fighting the Assembly polls next year, when it will face the formidable NDA once again.

Veteran RJD leader and former union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh on Friday again called for a merger of all the regional parties in the bloated and loosely-knit Mahagathbandhan – a view that has few takers even in his own party.

Hindustani Awam Morcha, a smaller constituent, reacted with sneer with its spokesman Danish Rizvan, remarking “Merger is a good idea. We would welcome it if RJD and other constituents agree to merge with HAM”.

Notably, HAM founding president Jitan Ram Manjhi, a former chief minister, has been threatening the grand Alliance that he would quit and go it alone in the Assembly polls if his demands are not accepted.

Manjhi’s demand is that if the grand alliance wins, it should have two Deputy CMs, besides the chief minister and these posts should be held by one candidate each from the extremely backward classes, the Scheduled Castes and the minorities.

The formula suggested by Manjhi virtually rules out the possibility of accepting the leadership of the Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu Prasad’s younger son or any other member of his family which controls the RJD, who belong to a powerful OBC caste.

RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha, a former NDA constituent who switched sides less than a year ago, has suggested that the grand alliance should be expanded to include other entities like the Left parties.

The Left parties, which are seen as a spent force in the state, have so far shown little interest in the proposal.

Amid this deluge of political strategies, Congress MLC Prem Chandra Mishra has warned the alliance members about the lurking threat from a recently formed front of a number of disgruntled leaders, which will benefit only the NDA.

The Bihar Navnirman Morcha was formed a fortnight ago by former state ministers Narendra Singh and Renu Kushwhaha, previously with JD(U) and BJP respectively, and Arun Kumar, the former RLSP MP from Jehanabad.

Speculations are rife that Rajesh Ranjan, alias Pappu Yadav, may also join the front as he has been disowned by the grand alliance and spurned by the NDA.

“All these leaders who have formed the Morcha, as well as those who are expected to join, wield influence in their respective areas. The social equation is such that if they enter the fray, they will cut into the votes of the grand alliance and benefit only the NDA. Something needs to be done about it, said Mishra.

NHRC issues notice to Bihar Police over JD(U) leader’s death; family claims Ganesh Ravidas was tortured in custody

Source: firstpost.com

New Delhi: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Monday sent a notice to the Bihar police chief over the death of a JD(U) leader in police custody, hours after he was picked up for interrogation in a kidnapping case. The family of the leader, identified as Ganesh Ravidas, alleged that he was tortured in police custody.

Ravidas was found hanging from the ceiling of a toilet at the Nagarnausa police station in Nalanda on Thursday night, sources earlier said. Three policemen have been arrested in connection with the case.

Ravidas, who was the block president of the party’s Mahadalit cell, was picked up for interrogation in connection with the kidnapping of a girl, wherein he was not named as an accused, the sources had said.

“The National Human Rights Commission has taken suo motu cognisance of media reports that a local leader of the ruling JD(U) in Bihar, who was detained by the Nalanda police in connection with a kidnapping case, allegedly hanged himself inside the police station late on Thursday night,” the NHRC said in a statement.

The commission observed that the content of the news report, if true, amounted to a gross violation of the right to life. “Accordingly, the commission has issued a notice to the Director General of Police (DGP), Bihar, calling for a detailed report in the matter within six weeks,” the NHRC stated.

The police authorities had also been told to explain as to why intimation in this regard was not given to the commission within 24 hours of the occurrence of the incident, the rights panel said. Ravidas was detained by police on 11 July night in connection with an alleged kidnapping of a girl residing in his village.

He was suspected to have helped the girl elope, the NHRC said, quoting media reports. When police interrogation was on, he went to use a washroom, which was outside the lock-up, where he reportedly hanged himself, it said.

“The news report further reveals that the victim was killed by the police station in-charge and chowkidar. It is also stated that there were cut marks on the body of the deceased, suggesting it to be a case of torture in police custody,” the statement read.