Patna: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad faces “political isolation” with several top leaders from the Opposition camp choosing to stay away from his proposed mega rally to be held in Patna on Saturday (August 27).

The rally nicknamed “BJP Bhagao, Desh Bachao” (dethrone BJP to save the country) was believed to be the major initiative by the RJD chief to forge unity in the scattered Opposition ahead of the next general elections due in 2019.

The presence of the Opposition leaders at Prasad rally had gained ground after quite many top leaders, such as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ahmed Patel, (all from the Congress), CPIM general secretary Sitaram Yechury and National Conference president Farooq Abdullah attended the “save the composite culture” conference organised by rebel Janata Dal United parliamentarian Sharad Yadav last week in Delhi.

Quite like Yadav, the RJD president too had invited all the opposition leaders at his party rally at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan. However, the response he received has not been quite encouraging.

Prasad had earlier claimed Congress chief Sonia Gandhi would attend his rally. He made this claim after Gandhi had called Prasad to extend her solidarity with him after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided his home in Patna last month in connection with a corruption case.

As of now, however, Gandhi is learnt to have asked two of her party leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and CP Joshi to attend the RJD rally. “Dr Azad and Joshi will represent the Congress at the rally,” Prasad has revealed.

Likewise, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Miss Mayawati too will not be attending Prasad’s rally. Instead, the BSP chief has deputy his party leader Satish Mishra to attend the RJD rally. The Communist Party of India (Marxists-Leninist) too has distanced from the programme. There is also no certainty about if Samajwadi Party chief and former UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav will make it to the function.

However, Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and rebel JD-U leader Sharad Yadav have consented to join the RJD rally, according to Prasad.

According to analysts, the continuing corruption cases against the RJD president is proving to a major hindrance in getting the opposition leaders come near him although the issue for which rally is being organised remains quite relevant. In the past few weeks, the CBI, Income tax Department and Enforcement Directorate have stepped up investigation against Prasad and his children in cases relating to corruption, much to the discomfiture of even his supporters.

The rally had been planned right when the JD-U headed by chief minister Nitish Kumar was part of the Grand Alliance (GA). But post Kumar pulling out of the GA and forming government with the BJP, the agenda of the rally has a bit got changed.

Now, the RJD seems to have converted the rally to vent ire against the chief minister for his “betrayal” with the people’s mandate and also to expose his “political opportunism”. The GA, as such, had got the mandate against the BJP-led NDA but Kumar ultimately broke alliance with the former and joined the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in what is being believed to one of the biggest political U-turns in recent years.