Patna,(BiharTimes): Senior RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh repeatedly said that his party had established lead over Janata Dal (United) in 145 Assembly segments in the last year Lok Sabha election, therefore, it has much stronger claim at the time of seat-sharing arrangement.
In the same way Janata Dal (United) says that since it had won 115 seats in the 2010 Assembly election against RJD 22 it has much larger claim over the seats.So after the collapse of merger talk it is on the issue of seat-adjustment that the matter has got stuck.
The truth is that both Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad want to contest more seats so that in the worst case scenario––like split between JD(U) and BJP in 2013––each of them remain strong and within reach of forming government.Nitish became ambitious after 2010 Assembly election simply because JD(U) alone won 115 seats out of 141 it contested.
His party won a couple of more by-elections and wooed all the three LJP legislators to his side. So now JD(U) alone was in the majority.Similarly the BJP won 91 out of 102 seats it contested. Though JD(U) and BJP got over 22 and 16 per cent votes respectively they won so many seats because of the alliance.
Now RJD sees the same prospect. If the election is fought in alliance with the JD(U) and the combine manages to win it, much will depend on which party emerges powerful. True Lalu may be facing legal hurdles in becoming CM, yet he would like his party to emerge much powerful. That can happen only when it contests more seats than the JD(U). In case of future split the party who emerges stronger may woo secular parties, for example, Congress or the Left to form the government and keep the BJP out.
So all this muscle-flexing is still on. But the two leaders also know that they would be routed if they fight separately. JD(U) will lose more as it is in power in the state.Analysts are of the view that several recent developments made Lalu Prasad suspicious. When Jitan Ram Manjhi was in power Nitish and Lalu were on the same plain. But once Nitish became CM he started talking from the position of strength. RJD chief, on the other hand, wanted his party to be taken into confidence in major decisions. The manner in which Nitish cancelled all the 34 decisions taken by the Manjhi cabinet in its last three meetings surprised the Lalu camp.
Still RJD continued to support the merger formula. On April 5 Lalu had said that the merger is a done deal, though Pappu Yadav opposed it in the same meeting. The announcement of merger by Samajwadi Party chief, Mulayam Singh Yadav, in New Delhi on April 15 instilled a new confidence in Nitish Kumar. So he conveniently ignored the Kumhar Samaj rally in Patna on April 19 where both he and Lalu were supposed to address. The latter attended it.This angered the RJD rank and file and the following day its legislators created scene in the Assembly on the issue of a murder of one of its workers in March. The message was loud and clear.
As is his temperament Nitish was not prepared to allow too much interference by RJD in the administrative matter. The relationship started becoming uneasy and by the time the Samajwadi Party general secretary, Ram Gopal Yadav, made the announcement that merger is now not possible before the Assembly election the situation had changed completely. Now instead of six parties the matter had to be settled between the two parties, rather than two figures with Mulayam hardly in the picture.According to an observer the old mistrust between the two got revived.
As Nitish has changed so many colours in the last few years he has lost much of his trustworthiness. He snapped ties with the BJP after 17 long years, than for a brief period befriended Congress on the issue of special category status, but went on to fight Lok Sabha election in alliance with the CPI. A year back he resigned and made Manjhi the CM. But if the latter is to be believed he started ruling from behind. He then extended his hand of friendship to Bade Bhai Lalu Prasad and subsequently floated the idea of merger of six parties. And after becoming the chief minister again on February 22 he started behaving as if his party is in power on his own.
