Nitish, Lalu forge alliance to contest Bihar assembly polls
NEW DELHI: Ending suspense over the issue of a tie-up, Bihar’s ruling Janata Dal (United) and Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Sunday decided to contest the state assembly elections in alliance and constitute a six member committee to finalize seat-sharing.
“It has been decided in today’s meeting that a committee of three members each from RJD and JD-U will decide seat sharing and leaders of both parties will give a final shape to it. It has been decided now that both parties will fight the election in Bihar in alliance,” Samajwadi Party general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav said.
He was talking to reporters after a two-hour long meeting between Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad at the residence of SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was approached by the two parties to broker peace after days of sparring between leaders of the two parties.
Asked about the contentious issue of chief ministership, the SP general secretary said, “There is no dispute ( Koi gahma gahmi nahin hai). These things will be taken care of later. The real thing is seat sharing...”
Seat-sharing arrangement
Emerging from the meeting Ram Gopal expressed confidence that the leaders of the two parties will complete the task of devising an effective seat-sharing arrangement very soon.
The SP general secretary was reading from a resolution adopted at the meeting which was also read out separately by JD-U general secretary K C Tyagi.
Leaders from the three parties refused to elaborate on the matter further. These decisions were taken after back to back meetings here.
Nitish Kumar, who had arrived in the national capital on Saturday, drove down to the residence of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi where they held discussions for almost an hour-and-a-half.
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Prasad had landed in the national captial when Kumar was meeting Rahul.
After weeks of sparring by leaders of their parties, Kumar and Prasad, who had not met for quite some time, on Sunday sat across the table at Mulayam’s residence in order to remove the irritants in the path of forging an alliance to thwart BJP’s attempt to wrest power in the politically sensitive state.
Congress has lent its weight behind the Bihar chief minister, making it clear that while it would like a grand alliance with Lalu and Kumar, it would rally around the latter if an alliance between the two Bihar-centric parties fails to materialize.
While Kumar immediately left for Patna after the meeting, Lalu Prasad stayed on and was later joined by Sharad Yadav for another round of talks at Mulayam’s residence.
Kumar, who came out of the meeting smiling, did not talk to reporters. After weeks of sparring by leaders of their parties, Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad sat across the table at Mulayam’s residence in order to remove the irritants in the path of forging an alliance to thwart BJP’s attempt to wrest power in the politically sensitive state.
JD(U) president Sharad Yadav was also present in the meeting.
The meeting, first between Lalu and Nitish in many weeks, apparently failed to resolve the differences between the two leaders on the issue of chief ministership.
While JD(U) has been insisting on Nitish to be declared as the chief ministerial candidate, Lalu has maintained that the issue can be addressed later.
The RJD leader had his way as the matter has been kept pending.
Sunday’s meeting came after Sharad Yadav’s assertion on Thursday that RJD, JD(U) and Congress will contest the elections together.