Patna: The relationship between Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Nitish Kumar, two political titans of Bihar, has reached boiling point.
Prasad is refusing to honour the JD-U’s request to project Kumar as the alliance’s chief ministerial candidate in the upcoming assembly polls.
Kumar currently heads the ruling JD-U government in the state running with the support of the RJD.
“We are not in favour of projecting anyone as the chief ministerial candidate. The elections should be fought under the joint leadership of Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar,” RJD vice-president Raghuvansh Prasad Singh told the media on Tuesday. Singh’s observations assume much significance since he is considered very close to the RJD chief.
Though Prasad, on his part, has not spoken about the issue in public, sources close to the RJD chief said he too is totally against accepting Kumar as the chief ministerial face of the alliance.
The reason why Prasad is not interested in projecting Kumar as the CM face is his apprehension of large-scale desertions by his fellow Yadav caste men who may finally switch over their loyalty to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Yadavs who comprise a strong 15 per cent of votes, blame Kumar for the political troubles of the RJD chief, besides meting out repeated tortures on the community during his nine years in power.
Prasad’s other apprehension, RJD insiders said, is that projecting Kumar for state’s top job could scuttle his plan to hand over the baton to his sons as Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav did.
Reports said the JD-U has been constantly pressing for settling the leadership issue before the seat-sharing deal was finalised.
The RJD’s claim to a lion’s share of seats has further led to tensions in their relationship.
The RJD wants at least 145 seats out of total 243 in the Bihar assembly, sparing only about 50 seats for the JD-U on the basis of their performances in the last year’s Lok Sabha polls.
On the other hand, the JD-U lays claims over all the 115 seats it won in the last 2010 state polls but the RJD has rejected its claim.
“The JD-U’s claim for sitting seats is not fair since it had won the last elections in alliance with the BJP. They can’t be treated as ‘sitting’ seats,” said RJD leader Singh.
The demand by the RJD to include former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi in the socialist alliance is yet another issue that has soured the relations between Kumar and Prasad barely a year after they buried their two decade-old hatchet to unitedly to become friends again so as to unitedly take on the BJP. The RJD describes Manjhi, former chief minister, as a significant political force in the state and says anti-BJP alliance will get strengthened with his induction.
“We are for broader unity of parties against BJP in which everybody including Manjhi is most welcome,” RJD chief Prasad told the media over the weekend, a move which has been strongly opposed by the JD-U which termed Manjhi as a “traitor”.
However, Bihar chief minister Kumar denied any differences between him and Prasad. “There are no differences between us … Things remain where they were before and there is nothing so far which can be said to be worrying,” Kumar told the media.
