Patna,(BiharTimes): With no possibility whatsoever of merger among the parties of Janata parivar Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has adopted a new political strategy to bargain his position vis-à-vis Lalu Prasad.

Reports from New Delhi said that to counter the Mulayam Singh-Lalu Prasad duo Nitish is exploring separate talks on electoral alliance with the Congress.Though the Bihar CM underwent an eye surgery on Thursday reports said that he remained away from the meeting at Mulayam Singh Yadav’s New Delhi residence on Friday as a part of a strategy.

In fact the Janata Dal (United) national chief, Sharad Yadav, represented the party in that meeting. He latter drove straight from there to Bihar Nivas and remained closeted with Nitish and other JD(U) leaders to chalk out the next course of action.

Reports from New Delhi also said that Sharad left the meeting after Lalu proposed that in the larger “anti-BJP morcha” talks should be held with former Bihar CM Jitan Ram Manjhi to include the latter in the alliance.

Lalu fully knows that it would be unacceptable to Nitish and Manjhi too would not like to have any truck with the RJD supremo till he is with the Bihar CM. Yet it remains a mystery as to why Lalu as well as Mulayam have suddenly developed cold feet on the issue of merger.

Some political observers have gone to the extent of saying that both Lalu and Mulayam are playing spoilsport as they both are in the net of the CBI and are directly or indirectly under pressure from the Narendra Modi government. After all Jayalalithaa has been metaphorically bailed out.

It may be too wide an interpretation but Nitish too is playing his cards well. On Friday he held meetingh with Sharad, Lallan Singh, K C Tyagi and R C P Singh to explore the possibility of an alliance with the Congress. The logic was that since many upper castes Congressmen as well as party vice president Rahul Gandhi do likes Lalu the Bihar chief minister may be a better choice. Nitish has his own quota of upper caste leaders who too have problems with Lalu.

But other sources said that the Congress is not much impressed by Nitish as he lacks the mass base and is nowhere as popular as Lalu Prasad. So the Congress is in a bind.However, reports said that the talks have not finally broken down between ‘Bade Bhai’ and ‘Chote Bhai’ and they have adopted these postures just to keep their bargaining position strong. Some reports said that the two leaders have met in New Delhi secretly late on Friday night or have held telephonic talks.

It is true that individually Nitish may still be popular but his party is nowhere in contest. Lalu personally may be down in the dump––especially because he has been convicted––but his party is much stronger than JD(U).For the BJP the battle is not just crucial at Bihar level. As it wants to have majority in the Rajya Sabha so that it may pass some important bills election victory in states, especially Bihar is necessary.