Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad
Lalu Prasad, in damage control mode, has accused arch rival and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar of scripting a conspiracy to break his Rashtriya Janata Dal. He has also reached out to old friend Ram Vilas Paswan who is said to be seeking an alliance with the BJP.
An irate Lalu lashed out at Nitish Kumar this morning accusing him of adopting unscrupulous means to make up numbers in the Bihar assembly after his split with the BJP last year. "Nitish Kumar has gone crazy since the divorce (with the BJP)....his conspiracy is similar to the American Water'kaand' (Watergate)," said the RJD chief this morning, vowing to expose "other technical details" about a revolt against him by some party legislators yesterday.
(Watch video)On Monday, 13 of Lalu's 22 Bihar legislators announced that they had split away from his Rashtriya Janata Dal. They met Bihar Assembly Speaker Uday Narain Choudhary and sought to be recognised as a separate group. The Speaker, who immediately declared them "unattached" from the RJD, too has earned Mr Yadav's ire.
(13 MLAs announce split from Lalu Prasad's RJD, six return within an hour) It took Mr Yadav all of an hour to declare last evening that six of the prodigals were back in the RJD. The party has hinted that it expects more rebels to return today as Lalu Prasad talked to each personally.
The rebels MLAs said yesterday that they will join hands with Nitish Kumar whose Janata Dal (United) has reportedly promised them ticket for the general elections due by May or assignments in the Bihar government.
They include Muslims and Yadavs, Lalu's core votebank, and the revolt is a body blow for both the RJD chief and the Congress, with whom he is now working out a pre-poll alliance for the general elections. They are counting on cornering the Muslim, Yadav and some Dalit votes with a four-cornered partnership in Bihar alongwith Congress ally the NCP and Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP.
However, Mr Paswan has shown a distinct inclination to work out an arrangement with Narendra Modi's BJP instead. He had reportedly demanded that his party be given at least a dozen seats to contest; Lalu Prasad refused.
But he emphasised today that his "door is always open for Paswan." The RJD chief said he had made repeated attempts to get in touch with Mr Paswan but in vain.