The BJP leaders in Bihar, currently preparing to make a success of the party’s two-day national executive meet in Patna beginning on June 12, are trying hard to persuade chief minister and JD(U) stalwart Nitish Kumar to address a massive rally the saffron party has planned on the second day of its conclave.

Raising its head in Bihar’s rural areas for the second time in six months, encephalitis has killed 13 children in Muzaffarpur district in a week. Even as the 13th child succumbed on Tuesday, doctors at the government hospitals were reportedly dismissing the deaths as a result of the rising summer heat.

With the last-minute entry of a surprise candidate raising the number of contenders vying for the five vacant Rajya Sabha seats from Bihar to six, it may now be an election and perhaps some horse-trading that would decide which two of the three non-NDA nominees go to the Upper House.

Despite acute unease in its ranks caused by the scheduled participation of the BJP’s controversial Hindutva mascots in the party’s Patna conclave, the JD(U) has uncharacteristically refrained from voi

Wary of the RJD-LJP’s perceived soft corners for the Congress, the Left parties are going to contest the Bihar Assembly polls together to throw the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government out of power. This is going to be the first time Bihar’s Left parties will contest an Assembly election as a united block.

Despite JMM chief Shibu Soren’s fresh claims of talks going on with the Congress for government formation in Jharkhand, the national party remains cold to his enticements primarily for two critical factors — the Maoists and ally Babulal Marandi.

The RJD witnessed a blatant show of rowdiness in its youth wing on Friday in an incident of armed brawl at the party headquarters in Patna. Even as a shocked RJD chief, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, responded by dissolving the youth wing’s executive body and ordering an inquiry, Bihar’s ruling JD(U) was quick to ridicule the RJD.

Now almost heading for his political sunset, former Jharkhand chief minister Shibu Soren on Thursday appeared in a fast-track trial court as the sole accused in a 36-year-old double murder case, a remnant from the 66-year-old tribal satrap’s early struggles against non-tribals in unified Bihar.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s offer of a Rajya Sabha berth to LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan is aimed at further cementing the ties between the two Bihar parties that started during the Lok Sabha polls mainly as a result of the Congress party’s rebuff of both the regional parties.

While Sonia Gandhi’s decision on Wednesday to remove both AICC in charge of Bihar, Jagdish Tytler, and state Congress president Anil Sharma from their posts was guided by a fresh rise in revolts by a section of the state Congress leaders, the choice of replacements built the ground for major strategic gains to the party in poll-bound Bihar.