New Delhi: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav on Sunday scorned the Congress as he questioned the party’s usefulness as an ally and wondered if his party should have left an assembly bypoll seat in the state for the national party so that it could lose even its deposit.
“What is this thing about an alliance with the Congress,” he shot back when asked about a virtual breakup of their alliance in the bypolls to two assembly seats over the RJD’s refusal to concede a seat to the national party. “Should we have given one seat (to Congress) for it to lose? So that it could lose even its deposit?” he said disdainfully.
He also mocked Congress leader Bhakta Charan Das, the party’s in-charge for Bihar, who has been targeting the RJD.
Das had recently said the Congress is no longer part of the RJD-led alliance in the state and even alleged that it had an understanding with the BJP behind then scene. “Does he know anything,” Yadav asked.
The RJD also played down the reported rift between his two sons, claiming there is no difference in the family.
Yadav’s comments came before he was scheduled to leave for Bihar where Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) is in a direct contest with the RJD to retain the two seats where the bypolls have been necessitated due to the death of their incumbent MLAs.