In a move which is likely to give a body blow to the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, senior JD(U) leader Prabhunath Singh is joining the RJD on Saturday. With Bihar Assembly elections now less than three months way, Mr Prabhunath Singh’s move will come as a double blow for the state chief minister, as another senior JD (U) leader, Rajiv Ranjan (Lalan) Singh has openly stated that he would be campaigning for the Congress.

The RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Thursday asserted that he would never snap ties with the Ram Vilas Paswan-led Lok Jan Shakti party and would even go to an extra mile to keep the alliance intact. He, however, conceded that the two parties are still engaged in a hard bargain over seat-adjustment for this year’s Bihar Assembly elections.

Though the Bihar Assembly elections are less than three months away, first sign of strain in the RJD-LJP alliance has come to the fore, with seat-sharing talks between the two parties having run into a wall. While the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD has indicated that his party can not give more than 30 seats out of the total of 243 to the LJP, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan has conveyed that his party would like to contest on more than 60 seats.

The JD(U) and BJP have begun separate review of each of the 243 Assembly seats in Bihar in a prelude to hard bargaining for swapping seats on the basis of delimitation exercise.

After failing to rope in Congress for an alliance in Bihar, the RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav is confident that Rahul Gandhi will create a chink in the upper caste vote base.
Asserting that he is not afraid of Mr Gandhi’s efforts to revive the Congress in Bihar, Mr Yadav is hopeful that the young Gandhi would deliver a blow to the JD(U)-BJP c

Caught in a classic catch-22 situation, the JD(U) is searching for answers to deal with party heavyweight and Lok Sabha MP Rajiv Ranjan (Lallan) Singh, who is working behind the doors to provide much needed oxygen to the Congress in Bihar. Further testing nerves of the JD(U), Mr Singh has dared the party to take action against him

Keeping a tight lease, BSP supremo Mayawati has spelt out “do’s and don’ts” to the party MPs for the Monsoon session of the Parliament by telling them that they have to launch a scathing attack on the UPA government on issues of price rise and neglect of UP but without being seen joining hands with the NDA and other parties.

In a bid to turn the 2012 UP electoral battle between between himself and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, state Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has embarked upon a hunt to find prospective candidates by inviting applications and interviewing them.

Rattled by unabated electoral losses, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has set out to diagnose ills affecting the party, apart from gauging people’s preferences of candidates ahead of the 2012 UP elections. Mr Yadav has called for an exhaustive report on each of the 403 Assembly constituencies to be prepared by party observers, 160 in all, who have fanned out in each of the 80 Lok Sabha seats.

Having decided to stick to the 2005 formula on seat-sharing for the Bihar state elections, the ruling JD(U) and BJP alliance have begun talking to swapping of about a dozen seats in the state.