Lalu, Nitish uneasy over seat sharing
NEW DELHI: The Janata Parivar is facing teething troubles in Bihar with its two key constituents, Lalu Prasad’s RJD and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), failing to strike a deal on seat-sharing for state assembly elections and other organisational issues.
Samajwadi Party chief and leader of the merged group Mulayam Singh Yadav has nudged the two Bihar strongman to bury their differences if they want the merger to go beyond Bihar, where state polls are due in six months.
Nitish met Lalu and Mulayam in Delhi separately on Wednesday, but failed to make much headway in papering over the cracks in the Janata Parivar, a combination of six socialist parties aiming to take on the BJP, which swept Bihar in the Lok Sabha election.
“This is a wrong impression that the RJD has accepted Nitish Kumar as the CM candidate. That issue will come up only after we finalise other issues, like the number of seats and representation in the organisa- tion that the two parties would get in the new political formulation,” said a close confidant of Lalu Prasad.
A dinner meeting between Nitish and finance minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday set rumour mills rolling, with the RJD leader alleging that Nitish was trying to keep Lalu on tenterhooks with his overtures to the BJP.
The BJP quickly dismissed any rapprochement with Nitish. “There is no question of joining hands. Such reports are false. Nitish may be spreading rumours to arm-twist the RJD,” Bihar BJP stalwart Sushil Kumar Modi told HT.
Sources privy to the negotiations say Nitish wants 120-plus seats out of the total of 243 for his loyalists and about 80 for the RJD, leaving another 40-45 seats for other partners.
Sources said Lalu has told Nitish he will not settle for anything less than 100 seats and a “respectable” share for his men in organisational roles, a demand aimed at flaunting his confidence that he can keep his vote intact despite a Modi wave because of his hold on the ground.