‘Imaginary’, says Bihar JD(U) chief on future alliance 

PATNA:  Nearly a week after Home Minister Amit Shah said the BJP would contest the future polls with its allies in Bihar, Janata Dal (United) national party chief Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh said that a discussion on it at present was “imaginary”. 

He said his party got less seats in the last assembly election “due to a conspiracy.” Rajiv Ranjan Singh, who is also the Munger MP, told the media that the party was engaged in making its organization strong at the grassroots level. “First, we will prepare ourselves and then we will decide who will be our alliance partners in elections. Who has seen what will happen tomorrow?” he said.

The union home minister had said the saffron party would contest the 2024 Lok Sabha and 2025 Bihar assembly elections with its allies during the concluding day function of two-day national executive meet of BJP’s frontal organisations in the Bihar state capital on July 31. The JD-U chief is also tipped to join the union cabinet in place of RCP Singh, the estranged leader of JD-U.

“The next Lok Sabha elections are yet to be announced, so any question on alliance will be imaginary,” Singh, a close aide of CM Nitish Kumar said. “My party is setting a goal for a repeat performance of the 2010 elections. The party’s strength went down to 43 seats in the 2020 assembly election. It did not mean that the party’s support base had shrunk. The tally went down due to a conspiracy,” he said.

“All of us are trying to consolidate Nitish’s support base. Our entire focus is on it,” said the JD-U chief.
In the 2010 Bihar assembly elections, the JD-U won 115 seats out of 141 it contested with its allies, including the BJP. The party contested the 2015 polls as an ally of the ‘grand alliance’, which formed the government under the leadership of Nitish with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav becoming deputy chief minister. 

Nitish returned to the NDA camp in 2017. In 2020, it was for the first time that JD-U’s seat tally was lower than that of the BJP. LJP leader Chirag Paswan had fielded his party candidates against JD-U’s, cutting into the latter’s votes. The LJP damaged the JD-U on at least 25 seats. It is also alleged that Chirag did it at the behest of the BJP. However, the JD-U never made such an allegation directly.