On a day when Rashtriya Lok Samata Party chief Upendra Kushwaha met incarcerated RJD leader Lalu Prasad at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences in Ranchi to discuss seat sharing, two of his party MLAs and an MLC rushed to meet Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Patna to discuss their political future in the NDA.
When Mr. Kushwaha had resigned from the Union Cabinet and quit the NDA to join the Grand Alliance, the two MLAs, Lallan Paswan and Sudhanshu Shekhar, along with MLC Sanjeev Shyam, had declared that they would remain with the NDA, claiming that they were the real RLSP leaders. Party sources told The Hindu that Nitish Kumar had offered one of the MLAs a ministerial berth. On Friday, RLSP national vice-president Bhagwan Singh Kushwaha too had formally joined the JD(U) along with some other party leaders.
In Ranchi, Mr. Kushwaha met Lalu Prasad Yadav; he was accompanied by Leader of Opposition in the State assembly Tejaswi Yadav and Vikasheel Insaan Party president Mukesh Sahni. The RLSP chief told reporters after the meeting that they had come to enquire about Mr. Yadav’s health and to discuss politics. “We will ensure that NDA is not able to win even a single seat in both Bihar and Jharkhand,” he said.
Responding to a question, Tejaswi Yadav said, “There is no formula as such in the Grand Alliance for seat sharing. The people of the State will decide who should contest from where and who will win.” Mukesh Sahni also said the same thing. He recently joined the Grand Alliance and is likely to be its candidate from Darbhanga or Muzaffarpur in the upcoming Lok Sabha poll. In the recent weeks, Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) founder Sharad Yadav, Congress leader Subodh Kant Sahay and rebel BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha too met Mr. Yadav in the hospital and discussed seat-sharing.
If sources in RJD are to be believed, seat sharing among Grand Alliance partners has been finalized by RJD chief Lalu Prasad and it will be declared after Maker Sankranti, January 14. Out of the total 40 seats in Bihar, RJD could contest in 18, leaving 10 to the Congress, 4 to RLSP, 2 to the Left parties, 2 to BSP and 1 each to Sharad Yadav-led LJD, Jitan Ram Manjhi-led HAM(S), Mukesh Sahni-led VIP and the Samajwadi Party. However, earlier HAM(S) leader Jitan Ram Manjhi had made a critical remark against mahagathbandhan (GA), apparently as a pressure tactic for more seats. “Smaller parties should not hanker after seats…for every one of us, defeating NDA candidate must be the sole aim”, senior RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said on Friday.
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