RJD chief Lalu Prasad meets riot-affected people at a relief camp in Muzaffarnagar
Politician Lalu Prasad thinks Arvind Kejriwal and Narendra Modi stand nowhere when compared with Rahul Gandhi.
"Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal are nobody in front of Rahul Gandhi," the 66-year-old leader said today, dismissing Mr Kejriwal's historic rise to power in Delhi yesterday.
The former Bihar chief minister, out on bail in a fodder scam case, visited riot-hit Muzaffarnagar today where he slammed the state government for not doing enough for the victims in relief camps. (
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"In a month's time, the Delhi residents will know what sort of people they have elected," the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief said, adding that Mr Kejriwal's government won't last.
Lalu Prasad's political expediency may have prompted his statements. But how the Congress vice-president, who recently said his party is "dead serious about fighting corruption," reacts to a 'tainted' leader's remarks remains to be seen.
Mr Gandhi had trashed his government's controversial ordinance that aimed at saving Mr Prasad and recently criticised the Maharashtra cabinet rejecting the Adarsh scam report. (
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With months to go for the national elections, due by May, analysts say an alliance with Congress is Mr Prasad's only option to regain his lost political ground.
The Congress, on its part, had also been warming up to the possibility of an alliance with Lalu Prasad. Party president Sonia Gandhi wished him after he was released from jail earlier this
month. (
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The Bihar Congress reportedly favours a tie-up with the RJD: in 2004, when they fought elections together, they won 29 of Bihar's 40 seats, the RJD bagging 22 and another partner, Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP, three.
In the Congress-led UPA government of 2004, Mr Yadav was the Railway Minister. But in 2009, the Congress fought Lok Sabha elections alone in Bihar after it failed to reach an agreement on seat-sharing with Mr Prasad.
But Rahul Gandhi's Congress, which is trying to take credit for passing the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill, might find it difficult to explain a partnership with the Lalu Prasad, who was convicted in September in a fodder scam case and sent to jail for five years.