Nitish Kumar, Lalu Yadav to take Alliance Beyond Bihar

NEW DELHI: It took 20 years for the political wheel to turn sufficiently to bring old Janata Dal colleagues Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav together on the same dais at Hajipur. So great was the enthusiasm and the response that both the Janata Dal(U) and Rashtriya Janata Dal leaders from Bihar will be campaigning jointly for their candidates in these ten byelections in the state.

And not just this, both along with the Congress party that has joined their alliance, are now looking at Jharkhand that is expected to go to the elections late this year. The results of the by polls in Bihar will give a fillip, or otherwise, to this alliance but even so there have been high level discussions about contesting the Jharkhand polls together. However, the BJP has a clear edge in the state, with or without this coalition.

The BJP has been attacking both Kumar and Yadav for coming together in what it terms an opportunistic alliance. Both have made it clear themselves, however, that the effort is to defeat the BJP and having made common cause they are treading carefully forward. The two leaders have not been seeking the media spotlights, and have worked first to bring their workers together on the same page, and then to ensure that a common minimum agenda emerges from the alliance. The last has not been too difficult as they are both socialists and have worked together in the Janata Dal.

The alliance is worrisome to the BJP as the other parties secured 47 per cent of the vote share between them, as against the 39 per cent of the NDA in Bihar in the Lok Sabha polls. The Left parties have formed another front that could cut into the Kumar-Yadav alliance in these by polls. It is not clear why this was felt necessary, but the CPM and CPI have for the first time got together with the CPI-ML in Bihar. The last has started by firing its first campaign salvo against JD(U) to which it is bitterly opposed.