Despite the JD(U) having frequently made its unwillingness to allow Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and BJP general secretary Varun Gandhi campaign in Bihar clear, the BJP keeps playing hide-and-seek on the issue apparently to test its ally’s nerves and to measure the Opposition parties’ mood for raising charges of communalism against the saffron party in the imminent Assembly polls.

For Chief Election Commissioner S.Y.

LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan on Saturday skipped his ally RJD’s grand public meeting chaired by Lalu Prasad Yadav in Chapra despite a pre-scheduled programme to attend it. The dalit leader’s absence disappointed many RJD leaders and sparked off rumours that Mr Paswan may be drifting apart.

Armed robbers struck in the air-conditioned and sleeper coaches of the Howrah-Delhi Lal Quila Express train in Bihar’s Jamui district very early on Friday morning and left 20 passengers injured as they looted cash and valuables worth about Rs 2.5 lakhs.

With the Jharkhand Vigilance Bureau having lodged FIRs against four MLAs from three leading parties for allegedly seeking bribes for casting votes in favour of a candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls, the issue of long-suspected “sale of RS seats” in the state is in the spotlight.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief and Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar on Friday unveiled his party’s ambitions for Bihar’s imminent Assembly polls by attacking the state’s JD(U)-BJP government and promising good governance bereft of caste divisions and crime.

With the shadow of drought covering large parts of Bihar and Jharkhand due to scanty rainfall, their respective state governments have identified the districts suffering the most and started planning emergency steps to minimise crop loss and mitigate the farmers’ woes.

Just a month after Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had a narrow escape while flying in a helicopter with its doors open, JD(U) national president Sharad Yadav on Thursday had a close shave when his helicopter developed severe mid-air vibrations that forced an emergency landing on a field near Patna.

Targeting Bihar’s Muslim voters at a time when all other parties are wooing the community ahead of the Assembly polls, the ruling BJP plans to hold a state-level convention of its Muslim workers in Patna.

Leaders of Bihar’s two ruling parties — the JD(U) and the BJP — are currently worried about the growing number of unseemly clashes witnessed at the meetings of their party workers across the state as they indicate that all is not well in the two parties’ affairs at the grassroots level just before the Assembly polls.