Rahul dials Nitish amid strains in Grand Alliance
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi held talks with JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar late on Tuesday evening over the friction ailing the ‘mahagathbandhan’ in Bihar, shortly after the latter gave RJD, the third alliance partner, four days’ time to take call on its leader, deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav.
A slew of corruptions charges against RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, his two minister sons and other family members have spelt unease in the coalition, which trumped the BJP in 2015 assembly elections.
On Tuesday, Gandhi rang Kumar and discussed, besides the issues troubling the alliance, the upcoming vice-presidential election. The Congress leader is learnt to have sought support for Gopalkrishna Gandhi, whom a united opposition had picked as the vice presidential candidate a few hours earlier.
The ruling NDA at the Centre has yet to announce its nominee for the August 5 election.
Sources indicated that Kumar will meet with Gandhi the next time the CM visits Delhi, in what could be sign of a possible thaw in the frosty ties among the three coalition partners.
“The cases against Prasad are politically motivated. The government is trying to corner him for political reasons,” a close aide of the Congress leader said on the condition of anonymity.
With JD(U) not coming out in full support of the RJD, asking the latter to come clean on the corruption charges against its senior leaders, the Congress’s stance would likely be in RJD’s support, given how its own ties with the JD(U) have soured over Kumar breaking ranks with the opposition to back the NDA’s presidential candidate, Ram Nath Kovind.
Kumar had even sent a representative for the midnight launch of the Goods and Services Tax, which the Congress had decided to boycott.
The chief minister is under mounting pressure to remove Tejashwi, named in an alleged land-for-hotels scam along with his father and mother Rabri Devi that saw the CBI raid their homes and properties at 12 locations in Patna, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar and Gurgaon.
It remains to be seen if the phone call between Gandhi and Kumar will ease the tension but the Congress leader did manage to secure Kumar’s support for Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
Kumar’s party colleague Sharad Yadav had attended the 18-party meeting to pick the vice presidential candidate.
The mirror told Nikita Laad she was going bald. Depressed at the thought of people jeering at her, the 20-year-old college student jumped before a running train in Madhya Pradesh and killed herself, police said on Wednesday.
She committed suicide on Monday at Pipalkot village in Khandwa district, about 270 km west of Bhopal, police added. Laad lived with her uncle’s family in Khandwa town, about 25 km from Pipalkot, where she attended college. Her body was recovered from the tracks near Pipalkot, and a “suicide note” was found in her bag.
"With receding hairline and baldness growing, I started pulling my hair in frustration. My family consulted many doctors for treatment but nothing happened. My family also got me tonsured so that I couldn’t pull my hair and it would grow again, but all in vain. Now, I have to cover my head with a scarf and I cannot take it anymore. I don't want to live my life with a scarf on the head forever. So I am committing suicide,” police said, quoting from the suicide note.
Laad also wrote she loved her parents and that no one else was responsible for her death.