Lalu, Paswan to skip cabinet meeting

May 18th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Chief Lalu Prasad today said he would lend unconditional support to the UPA Government. After attending a meeting of the Union Cabinet, Lalu said he is ready to offer unconditional support to the government.

May 17th, 2009 PATNA/NEW DELHI - UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi Sunday rang up RJD chief and Railways Minister Lalu Prasad asking him to attend a meeting of the outgoing cabinet Monday and invited him to join the new government, sources close to the minister said. Bhola Yadav, personal assistant of Lalu Prasad, told IANS from Patna minutes before the minister left for Delhi that: 'Sonia-ji called up and invited him (Lalu Prasad) to attend the meeting and also join the government.' 'Lalu-ji has already regretted that the RJD did not ally with the Congress in the elections,' he added.

May 9th, 2009 CHENNAI - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday said that the media was 'sensationalising' the absence of UPA partners - Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan and DMK leaders from Friday's cabinet meeting. Asked to comment on the absence of the ministers from a cabinet meeting, Manmohan Singh said: 'Media sometimes is interested in sensationalism of even trivial issues.

May 8th, 2009 KOLKATA - Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) supremo Ram Vilas Paswan has said that he too will miss out on Friday's Union Cabinet meeting. Earlier, it was reported that Railway Minister and Rashtriya Janata Party (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav would also miss the meeting.

May 8th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Three key constituents of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) skipped a cabinet meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called here Friday evening, but said they were still part of the coalition. Railways Minister Lalu Prasad, who had made it apparent that he would stay away, however, sent a representative.

May 8th, 2009 PATNA - The Bihar unit of the Congress Friday urged the party's top leadership to keep Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) president Ram Vilas Paswan out if the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) comes back to power at the centre. 'Congress workers and leaders of the state are of the view that the party high command should keep both Lalu and Paswan out of the next government of the UPA because any working relationship with them will harm the party's revival prospects in Bihar,' president of the party's state unit Anil Kumar Sharma said.

May 8th, 2009 KOLKATA - The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) was with the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and would remain with it, union minister Ram Vilas Paswan said Friday while clarifying that he was staying away from the cabinet meeting in New Delhi because of a previous commitment here. 'I have not skipped the cabinet meeting.

May 8th, 2009 PATNA - The Bihar unit of the Congress Friday urged the party's top leadership to keep Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) president Ram Vilas Paswan out if the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) comes back to power at the centre. 'Congress workers and leaders of the state are of the view that the party high command should keep both Lalu and Paswan out of the next government of the UPA because any working relationship with them will harm the party's revival prospects in Bihar,' president of the party's state unit Anil Kumar Sharma said.

May 8th, 2009 KOLKATA - Congress spokesman Veerappa Moily took his party's spat with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Lok Janshakti Party to another level on Friday when he accused coalition partners of "insulting" the Congress over seat-sharing in Bihar. "We should be more angry.

May 8th, 2009 NEW DELHI - An angry Railway Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav is expected to skip today's cabinet meeting in the capital in the wake of Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi suggesting a possible political arrangement with Lalu's rival in Bihar -- Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The otherwise media-friendly and gregarious Lalu shunned the media on Thursday even as polling was held for three Bihar Lok Sabha seats, including Pataliputra, which he is contesting.

May 8th, 2009 NEW DELHI/KOLKATA - Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan will skip a meeting of the union cabinet called by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here Friday evening. However, Paswan clarified that he was staying away because of a prior commitment in Kolkata and that his Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) would remain within the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA).

April 20th, 2009 PATNA - After Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad, it was Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan's turn to blame the Congress party for the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Lalu has just said that there was a Congress government at the Centre when the Babri mosque was pulled down.

April 19th, 2009 PATNA - After RJD's Lalu Prasad, it was Lok Janshakti Party's Ram Vilas Paswan's turn on Sunday to criticise Congress Party. LJP chief and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has said that the Congress should not have flexed muscles by fielding a candidate against him in his parliamentary constituency in Hajipur.

March 20th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Ram Vilas Paswan and Lalu Prasad, leaders of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) respectively, held an emergency meeting on Thursday evening. The meeting came after Congress that it might contest over 26 seats in the Lok Sabha polls from Bihar, where the RJD and the LJP have a seat-sharing arrangement.

March 20th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Forty eight hours after his Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad cocked a snook at their United Progressive Alliance (UPA) partner Congress by unilaterally announcing a seat-sharing formula for Bihar, LJP supremo Ram Vilas Paswan asserted he had warned the Congress not to ignore him but the 'Congress did not take me seriously'. In an exclusive interview to IANS, Paswan revealed he had decided to be 'upfront' and 'aggressive' with senior Congress leaders at his first contact with them on the margins of a cabinet meeting Wednesday after they accused him of 'betrayal' following the Paswan-Laloo deal.