The JMM, its eyes set on heading a new government in Jharkhand for which it got the support of the Congress and the RJD, on Saturday claimed to have the support of 42 MLAs even as it worked on garnering the magic number.

The BJP in Bihar finally got its much-sought “Modi touch” on Saturday evening as the party’s national poll campaign committee chief and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi directly spoke with 1,500 BJP workers via tele-conference from Gandhinagar for the first time and injected new enthusiasm in the BJP’s Bihar unit.

Gujarat chief minister and BJP’s campaign committee head Narendra Modi’s close aide Amit Shah’s statement that a grand temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya should be build, on Saturday drew sharp reactions from other parties which accused the main Opposition of raking up the issue for electoral gains.

The JMM leadership remained worried about whether it could get the formal, effective support of two party MLAs who have been absconding for months to evade arrest and police interrogation in criminal cases.

With Lok Sabha elections due in 2014, the railways is racing ahead against time to fully operationalise the rail coach factory (RCF) in the Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s parliamentary constituency Rae Bareli by June 2014. The railways is closely monitoring the progress of the RCF Rae Bareli ever since the ministry came back to the Congress after a gap of over 17 years.

The rising graph of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi has changed the internal arithmetic of the saffron party in Rajasthan. The state BJP under the stewardship of former chief minister Vasundhara Raje sided with Mr Modi and on its way to cash in latter’s popularity to garner public support. The party sources said Mr Modi will be star campaigner in Rajasthan.

The former chairman of the state Forest Development Corporation, Mr Shivshanker Pateria, has come out in the open and declared that he was the mastermind behind the controversial CD that eventually put Madhya Pradesh finance minister Raghavji in the spot and led to his ouster from the state Cabinet. After this revelation, the BJP has suspended Mr Pateria from the party for six years.

The ruling Trinamul Congress on Saturday boycotted the all-party meeting convened by state election commission to discuss the key issues of the rescheduled panchayat polls. The meeting was scheduled to start at 11.30 am. However, the commission waited for nearly over 20 minutes for the representatives of Trinamul Congress before starting the meeting.

Using the panchayat-election-in-Ramzan as a powerful weapon, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday renewed attacks against the state election commission, vowing to take revenge.

In a unique and pioneering effort, the ministry of external affairs reached out to the non-English speaking audience to explain various facets of Indian foreign policy through a Hindi news channel on Saturday.