Lalu predicts 190 seats for grand secular alliance

The RJD chief said his supporters voted aggressively, particularly after the Prime Minister threw the "shaitan" (devil) barb at him.

Though majority of the exit polls predicted that the grand secular alliance was narrowly ahead of its NDA rival in Bihar elections, RJD President Lalu Prasad today exuded confidence that his grouping would win no less than 190 seats.

“We are going to win not less than 190 seats,” Prasad asserted while talking to reporters.

The RJD chief coincided the timing of his press conference at his party office here with the timing of exit polls broadcast by TV channels after completion of the fifth and final round of voting in 57 seats to buttress his forecast of 190 seats.

“These exit polls are prepared in towns and sitting in a room. But my claim of 190 seats is based on reading the pulse of people during campaign,” Prasad, who addressed over 240 rallies during the five-phase polling in the State, said.

“I am an Honours degree holder in political science,” he said to justify his calculation of 190 seats.

Hinting that the “Mandal factor” played a major role in taking the secular alliance ahead, Prasad said, “Golbandi (coming together) of backwards and dalits was more sharp this time than it was in 1990 (when RJD came to power for the first time after implementation of Mandal commission report providing reservation in jobs).”

“When Nitish and I, the two backward castes leaders, came together there was perfect unity among OBC... upper castes, on whom the NDA was banking, but they did not turn out in large numbers as they found it difficult to defend the PM who did not fulfil any of the promises he had made during Parliamentary election,” he said.

The RJD chief said his supporters voted aggressively, particularly after the Prime Minister threw the “shaitan” (devil) barb at him.

He pointed to a recent statement of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh that Amit Shah need not resign as BJP chief on the basis of Bihar election outcome and said, “It makes it clear that the BJP knows it has lost the election.”

Supremely confident of victory in the Bihar poll, the RJD chief said he and other secular alliance leaders would travel to West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, where Assembly elections are due in the near future, to appeal to the anti-BJP parties to come together like he and Nitish Kumar had done.