After weeks of trading barbs, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (United) has made it clear to Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Yadav that their plans to form an alliance to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party in October's elections in Bihar will not materialise unless Lalu gives up this ambitions to lead this front.
The message was delivered for the first time on Sunday, just when talks between Nitish and Lalu appeared on a knife's edge. The result was a temporary truce, which was announced after the two Bihar satraps met Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav at his residence.
“All issues have been sorted out. It has been decided that the RJD and the JD(U) will contest elections in Bihar in alliance,” Samajwadi Party general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav told mediapersons after the meeting. “A six-member committee will be formed to look into issues of seat sharing. The two parties will appoint three members each to the committee.” However, Yadav refused to announce the names of the members. He also ducked the contentious question of the choice of the chief ministerial candidate. “There is no dispute," he said. "These things will be taken care of later.”
Reaching a deadlock
In reality, Sunday’s meeting did not sort out anything. Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar discussed their differences separately with Mulayam, officials said. When the Samajwadi Party chief was unable to evolve a compromise formula, they decided to announce a temporary truce.
According to JD(U) officials, the Bihar chief minister conveyed to Lalu Prasad through Mulayam that he was not in favour of the two parties contesting an equal number of seats in the assembly elections. Nitish Kumar contended that the RJD must be ready to fight fewer than hundred constituencies if it wanted to remain part of the grand anti-Hindutva alliance.
After RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh’s claim of 145 seats for his party boomeranged, close aides of Lalu Prasad were trying to suggest that of total 243 seats in the Bihar assembly, the RJD and the JD(U) should contest a hundred each. The remaining 43 would be left for the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Left parties.
Nitish Kumar, however, struck down this formula at Sunday’s meeting, asserting for the first time that he wanted his party to contest on a larger number of seats than the RJD in the assembly polls scheduled to be held later this year.
That the JD(U) leader had made up his mind and secured the Congress Party's backing well in advance became clear when hours before the meeting of the three factions of Janata Parivar, he held closed-door confabulations with Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi.
A clear message
Though it could not be ascertained as to what transpired in Rahul-Nitish meeting, the JD(U) leader had succeeded in sending the message to the RJD chief that he had kept his alternative plan ready and that the latter must not take him for granted.
The fact that Gandhi agreed to meet Nitish ahead of the latter’s scheduled meeting with Mulayam and Lalu sent out a clear signal that in the charged political atmosphere of Bihar, the Congress considered the JD(U), and not the RJD, its first preference. In the Lok Sabha elections last year, Congress and the RJD contested in an alliance and succeeded in obtaining the support of a majority of Muslims, who account for nearly 16% of the state’s population.
The changed preference shown by Gandhi on Sunday signals that in case the Congress forms a coalition with the JD(U), Muslims may shift away from the RJD, thus breaking the M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) combination that has been a major force in the state politics for the last two and a half decades. The fallout may be disastrous for the RJD should it choose to contest the assembly polls independently of the JD(U)-Congress combination. In a three-cornered contest, this combination would appear better poised to defeat the BJP than the RJD.
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The message was delivered for the first time on Sunday, just when talks between Nitish and Lalu appeared on a knife's edge. The result was a temporary truce, which was announced after the two Bihar satraps met Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav at his residence.
“All issues have been sorted out. It has been decided that the RJD and the JD(U) will contest elections in Bihar in alliance,” Samajwadi Party general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav told mediapersons after the meeting. “A six-member committee will be formed to look into issues of seat sharing. The two parties will appoint three members each to the committee.” However, Yadav refused to announce the names of the members. He also ducked the contentious question of the choice of the chief ministerial candidate. “There is no dispute," he said. "These things will be taken care of later.”
Reaching a deadlock
In reality, Sunday’s meeting did not sort out anything. Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar discussed their differences separately with Mulayam, officials said. When the Samajwadi Party chief was unable to evolve a compromise formula, they decided to announce a temporary truce.
According to JD(U) officials, the Bihar chief minister conveyed to Lalu Prasad through Mulayam that he was not in favour of the two parties contesting an equal number of seats in the assembly elections. Nitish Kumar contended that the RJD must be ready to fight fewer than hundred constituencies if it wanted to remain part of the grand anti-Hindutva alliance.
After RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh’s claim of 145 seats for his party boomeranged, close aides of Lalu Prasad were trying to suggest that of total 243 seats in the Bihar assembly, the RJD and the JD(U) should contest a hundred each. The remaining 43 would be left for the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Left parties.
Nitish Kumar, however, struck down this formula at Sunday’s meeting, asserting for the first time that he wanted his party to contest on a larger number of seats than the RJD in the assembly polls scheduled to be held later this year.
That the JD(U) leader had made up his mind and secured the Congress Party's backing well in advance became clear when hours before the meeting of the three factions of Janata Parivar, he held closed-door confabulations with Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi.
A clear message
Though it could not be ascertained as to what transpired in Rahul-Nitish meeting, the JD(U) leader had succeeded in sending the message to the RJD chief that he had kept his alternative plan ready and that the latter must not take him for granted.
The fact that Gandhi agreed to meet Nitish ahead of the latter’s scheduled meeting with Mulayam and Lalu sent out a clear signal that in the charged political atmosphere of Bihar, the Congress considered the JD(U), and not the RJD, its first preference. In the Lok Sabha elections last year, Congress and the RJD contested in an alliance and succeeded in obtaining the support of a majority of Muslims, who account for nearly 16% of the state’s population.
The changed preference shown by Gandhi on Sunday signals that in case the Congress forms a coalition with the JD(U), Muslims may shift away from the RJD, thus breaking the M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) combination that has been a major force in the state politics for the last two and a half decades. The fallout may be disastrous for the RJD should it choose to contest the assembly polls independently of the JD(U)-Congress combination. In a three-cornered contest, this combination would appear better poised to defeat the BJP than the RJD.