Rahul Gandhi, Lalu Yadav push for four-party alliance in Bihar

NEW DELHI | PATNA: RJD chief Lalu Prasad met Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on Monday as part of ongoing efforts to prop up a RJD-Congress-LJP-NCP alliance in Bihar for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The meeting between Prasad and Gandhi, the second in a fortnight, has underscored keenness of the two to ink a poll pact with focus now on working out a seat-sharing formula that could address concerns of sulking LJP leader Ramvilas Paswan as well. The two leaders met soon after Congress leader Digvijaya Singh held talks with Paswan in Delhi.

The signs of an alliance is a major blow to Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) which broke off its ties with BJP, after the latter declared Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate. Kumar, whose party has the support of a sizeable Muslim population in Bihar, while breaking off ties with the BJP had hoped to align with Congress and consolidate the Muslim vote, with Prasad sent to jail over a fodder scam case.

If the four parties strike an alliance under the leadership of Prasad, the rainbow social combination could challenge the BJP’s efforts to mop up a record tally in Bihar. While Congress and RJD camps remained guarded on the development — saying talks were at a preliminary stage — indications were that Congress was keen on contesting 10-12 seats and Prasad was eyeing around 22-25 seats. The parties would leave four seats for Paswan’s LJP and one for Tariq Anwar of NCP.

However, Paswan had demanded 5-6 seats for his party and as part of a bargaining ploy has been showing unhappiness with the deal. He has dropped hints about being in touch with Kumar’s JD(U) camp. LJP was keen on having an alliance with JD(U) but has left the decision on Congress, saying it would respect Congress’ view on the alliance.

This is seen as Paswan’s way of leaving the issues in the hands of Gandhis to sort out the seat-sharing formula with RJD.

Now it seems, those from Congress and JD(U) who had reassured Kumar of clinching a deal with the Grand Old Party were either out of the loop or deliberately leading the JD(U) chief up the garden path.