Doesn’t happen so quickly, Lalu says on seat deal

The RJD chief, when asked if he would attend the consecration ceremony of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya on January 22, replied in the negative. “No, I will not go,” he said.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad on Wednesday hinted that the seat sharing exercise within the ruling Mahagathbandhan alliance in Bihar for the upcoming parliamentary polls would take some time.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad (HT file)

“Do these things take place so quickly? Progress is underway,” was the curt reply of Prasad, when asked by reporters about the “delay” in seat sharing.

The RJD chief, when asked if he would attend the consecration ceremony of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya on January 22, replied in the negative. “No, I will not go,” he said.

Prasad evaded a reply on a question about the “rift” between him and chief minister and JD-U chief Nitish Kumar.

On January 15, his son and deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav had said that the seat-sharing talks had gained momentum and things would take a final shape soon.

Nitish Kumar too had stressed the need to speed up the process to arrive at a seat sharing deal among allies in the INDIA bloc, especially in Bihar, at the virtual meeting of the bloc held on January 13, which was attended by Congress and 13 other parties.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav had skipped the event.

On January 15, on the occasion of Makar Sankranti, CM Kumar had visited Lalu Prasad’s residence to attend a feast of customary “dahi chura(beaten rice and curd)” but did not speak to the waiting reporters.

Bihar has 40 Lok Sabha seats. The Mahagatbandhan comprises six parties — RJD, JD-U, Congress, CPI, CPM and CPI-ML (Liberation).

The JD-U is firm on 17 seats, citing the same number of seats it had fought in the 2019 LS polls, a claim dismissed by the CPI-ML (Liberation), which is eying five seats.

“The formula of 2019 parliamentary polls cannot be applied for the upcoming polls with regard to JD-U) as the party was then in alliance with the BJP. There are issues, but these would be sorted out,” said a senior CPI-ML (Liberation) leader, wishing not to be named.

State spokesperson of JD-U, Abhishek Jha, said reports of a rift between RJD and JD-U were baseless.

RJD, with 79 MLAs, is the biggest constituent of the Mahagathbandhan alliance in Bihar, though the party had drawn a blank in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

JD-U, which fought 17 seats in the 2019 LS polls in alliance with BJP, had won 16 of them.

The BJP-led NDA had swept the polls, winning 39 seats. BJP won on all 17 seats it had contested.