Former IPS officer and JVM(P) candidate Ajay Kumar won in the Jamshedpur Lok Sabha bypoll by a record margin of over 1.55 lakh votes on Monday, delivering a rude shock to Jharkhand’s three ruling allies — BJP, JMM and AJSU — and JVM(P)’s ally Congress, who had all fielded candidates and campaigned hard.

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Friday visited the homes of poor Muslims whose relatives were killed and others injured in the June 3 police firing in Forbesganj and assured them of help in

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Friday visited the homes of poor Muslims whose relatives were killed and others injured in the June 3 police firing in Forbesganj and assured them of help in getting justice and better medical treatment for the injured.

Two days after his surprise visit to the family of a teenage rape victim in UP, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is set to make a brief, unscheduled visit to Forbesganj in Bihar on Friday to meet the kin of the victims of the brutal June 3 police firing on poor Muslims.

The winner in the keenly-contested Jamshedpur Lok Sabha bypoll in Jharkhand, slated for Friday, could be decided by which way three crucial components of the constituency’s 13.97 lakh voters, the Kurmi community, Muslims and Maoists, swing.

Bihar’s ruling allies, JD(U) and BJP, may be slowly moving towards yet another coalition friction that is in the making after a disgruntled JD(U) MP shot off a letter to BJP national president Nitin Gadkari alleging about “corrupt practices” in two departments in the Bihar government under the charge of BJP ministers.

The BJP on Monday poured ridicule on Congress president Sonia Gandhi and prime minister Manmohan Singh for the massive corruption in the country and named senior ministers in the Central UPA government as willing collaborators in the 2G spectrum scam.

Keen on bringing the Forbesganj police firing on poor Muslims to the national spotlight, LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan plans to hold a demonstration at Jantar Mantar in Delhi on July 5.

After its stunning success in West Bengal, the Trinamul Congress has set its eyes westward with plans afoot for a foray into Jharkhand with the upcoming Jamshedpur LS bypoll.

The Purnea Assembly bypoll in Bihar, held peacefully on Saturday with a mere 44 per cent polling amid rains, is far from being even an electoral semi-final in the state to allow an early prediction of the faraway final’s outcome in 2015. But recent important developments have given this bypoll an outsized aura.