A day after the Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal agreed to contest the Bihar Assembly elections together, RJD chief Lalu Prasad conceded the JD (U) demand that the chief ministerial candidate for the combine should be the incumbent, Nitish Kumar, resolving a key point of difference between the two parties.
The formal declaration of Mr. Kumar as the alliance’s CM candidate by Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh, flanked by the RJD chief and JD (U) president Sharad Yadav, at a packed press conference in Delhi had an electrifying impact in Patna. Upbeat State JD(U) leaders rushed to Mr. Kumar’s residence 7, Circular Road to congratulate him, declaring, “The BJP’s defeat in the Bihar polls is certain … we’ll march to Delhi thereafter.”
A visibly pleased Mr. Kumar told journalists at his weekly janata durbar in Patna that Mr. Prasad had consistently advocated a grand alliance that would include the Congress: “Lalu Prasadji has always been in favour of a grand alliance between the RJD, the JD(U), the Congress and all secular parties to take on the BJP in the Bihar polls.” He said the seat-sharing talks would commence on Tuesday.
Stressing that the Congress would definitely be a part of the combine, Mr. Kumar added, “The Congress is involved in the talks about the Bihar polls. Rahul Gandhi and I discussed various issues in Delhi.”
If the SP chief played a key part in ironing out the differences, the Congress, too, played a behind-the scenes role in bringing the RJD chief and the Bihar CM together.
In Delhi, meanwhile, the SP chief stressed that Mr. Prasad had “proposed” Mr. Kumar’s name as CM candidate. “I am very happy about the unity of Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar. Mr. Kumar will be the chief ministerial candidate for Bihar … There are no differences and we will not allow any differences to crop up. We will fight together to root out all communal forces.”
Echoing that, the RJD chief said, “All secular parties must join hands to check the growth of communal forces. I am ready to consume all kinds of poison to crush this cobra of communalism. We will destroy them unitedly, and wipe out the BJP from Bihar. Everything else is secondary.”
He also clarified that as he cannot contest the elections himself and there was no other CM contender from his party — or family — he was happy to back Mr. Kumar for the CM post: after all, they belonged to the same political family with the same goals, despite their differences in the past.
Will have no impact: BJPThe BJP and its allies predictably greeted the announcement with scepticism: while State BJP president Mangal Pandey said the coming together of the two parties would not have any impact on the BJP, Union Minister and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan predicted that the RJD and JD (U) leaders “would ultimately backstab each other.”
