Patna:
Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal will decide on Wednesday whether to support two candidates of Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) in the Rajya Sabha by-election.
The RJD's legislature party had met on Tuesday evening to decide whether to support JD(U)'s on the matter, but due to the absence of three legislators, the party decided to wait till Wednesday, when party legislators meet again.
The two JD(U) nominees - diplomat-politician Pawan Varma and Gulam Rasool Balyawi - are facing stiff challenge from independents - real estate baron Anil Sharma and Sabir Ali who are being backed by party rebels and BJP in the June 19 bypoll.
Meanwhile, there seems to be trouble brewing for the JD(U) as 15 MLAs skipped the legislature party meeting on Tuesday evening.
The JD(U) has 117 MLAs, including the Speaker, the BJP 84, RJD 21, Congress four, CPI one and Independents five. Since the arithmetic is weighing against ruling JD(U), the support of 21 RJD MLAs is crucial for it in a House of 243, with an effective strength of 232 because of 11 vacancies.
Last week, Nitish Kumar, the former Chief Minister of Bihar, had sought the support of Lalu Prasad for the by-election to "foil the game plan of BJP to destabilise the government".
The RJD had recently supported the Jitan Manjhi government during a vote of confidence in the Bihar assembly but Mr Prasad later announced this was a one-off case. Since then, two out of three RJD MLAs who defected to the JD(U) have been offered ministerial berths, something that has angered the RJD chief.
On Wednesday, the BJP legislature party will also meet, but the party's decision to back the two rebel nominees will depend on the RJD's decision and how much do the JD(U) rebels muster support.
In a related development, the state Chief Electoral Officer in a communique to the Assembly Secretary with a copy of past decisions of the Supreme Court said that legislators should have freedom for open voting.