On a day when a senior Rashtriya Janata Dal leader openly declared that Nitish Kumar cannot be projected as the chief ministerial candidate as a large section of society is opposing him, the Bihar Congress president said in Delhi that his party would like to contest the Assembly poll with Mr. Kumar as CM candidate.
Mr. Kumar, who welcomed the Congress’ move, remained non-committal on the RJD leader’s comment. With both Mr. Kumar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad remaining incommunicado for the last several days, there is a deadlock between both the RJD and the JD(U) over the question of ‘seat adjustment’ ahead of the Assembly poll.
RJD vice-president Raghuvansh Prasad Singh on Monday openly declared that Mr. Kumar could not be projected as the CM candidate of any alliance. “I will say a thousand times that Nitish Kumar should not be named chief ministerial candidate of any alliance. This issue will be decided after the Assembly polls,” he said.
Earlier too, Mr. Singh had declared that the RJD should get 145 seats as it had a bigger vote base than the JD(U).
To a question, Mr. Prasad said he neither had any problem with Mr. Kumar nor with his party and the alliance issue would be settled when they sit together and discuss.
“I don’t want to talk through newspapers”, he said.
On Sunday, Mr. Prasad had a meeting with JD(U) president Sharad Yadav in Patna. Mr. Yadav later met Mr. Kumar but party sources said nothing substantial came out of these meetings.
Asked about Mr. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh’s statement, Mr. Kumar said: “I don’t have to make any comment on this … it is not proper for everyone to comment everytime… but there is nothing which should be said as a last word on this. Still there is time.”
However, he responded positively when asked about what Mr. Chaudhury said in Delhi. “There has been good coordination with the Congress and they are also supporting our government in the State. There will be an alliance with the Congress and there should not be any doubts on it,” he said.
