Janata Parivar merger may give a tough fight to NDA in Bihar polls: Upendra Kushwaha

NEW DELHI: Ahead of Bihar Assembly polls scheduled later this year, Union minister Upendra Kushwaha has sounded a note of caution for ally BJP, which has been buoyed by successive victories in state elections after its triumph in the Lok Sabha polls last year.

"There is a need to be a little cautious. Had JD(U) and RJD been separate, it would have been easier for NDA to win the elections. Since they are together, we need to be a little more cautious and need to strategise properly," the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party chief told PTI.

His concern is borne out by the result of Assembly bypolls held on 10 seats in Bihar in August last year in which NDA won only four seats, while the JD(U)-RJD and Congress combine bagged the remaining six.

That result for NDA had come just about three months after the Lok Sabha elections in which the Narendra Modi juggernaut had virtually decimated the Opposition with BJP winning 31 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar.

The coming together of JD(U), RJD and Congress makes the alliance a rainbow coalition of the Yadavs, Dalits, most backward classes (MBCs), Kurmis and Muslims, which numerically could pose a serious challenge to NDA, believes a section among the BJP-led alliance.

Kushwaha, the Lok Sabha MP from Karakat and the Union Minister of State for Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Drinking Water and Sanitation, is an influential leader of the Kushwaha (koiri) community, who had aligned with NDA after parting ways with Nitish Kumar's JD(U) in Bihar.

Riding the Modi wave in the Lok Sabha polls, his party won all the three parliamentary seats in which it contested.

Although Kushwaha was dismissive of the coming together of splinter groups of Janata Parivar on the national level, he believes Lalu Prasad's RJD and Kumar's JD-(U) will be allied in the state, as they face a "rout" otherwise.

Kushwaha said JD-U and RJD have no other option but to join hands and insisted that Bihar is looking forward to a change.