There is some truth and honesty in what Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Vice President of the RJD and a former Union Minister has said about his Party’s grand alliance in Bihar to take on the BJP in the forthcoming elections to the state assembly. 
He has said that the ‘alliance’ of RJD-JD (U) Congress is ‘only on paper’. The poor performance of the alliance in the just concluded MLC elections should be an eye opener. The BJP and its allies have won handsomely in the MLC elections taking 13 of 24 seats while the ‘grand alliance’ could win only 10 seats, one seat going to the Congress. “We still hold our rallies and meetings separately”, Raghuvansh Prasad said in an interview to a financial daily on Monday.
The cracks in the ‘grand alliance’ are palpable as it was evident at the ‘iftar party’ of the Congress President Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi last evening. Lalu Prasad Yadav did not attend the iftar of the Congress President saying he had prior engagement of ‘march to Raj Bhavan’. He did march to Raj Bhavan in Patna yesterday but that was all that important to reject Sonia’s invitation to the iftar in Delhi.
The inside story tells something else. Lalu is reportedly angry with the Congress leadership. Few weeks back when Lalu was in Delhi and wanted to meet Sonia Gandhi, he was denied audience by the Congress President. The Congress leadership is more inclined to Nitish Kumar than Lalu Yadav. Lalu Yadav has also not forgotten how Rahul Gandhi had torn the draft ordinance of the Manmohan Singh government in 2014 that would have given protection to Lalu Yadav convicted in the fodder scam. It was because of Rahul Gandhi that Lalu today stands debarred from contesting elections.
Recently, Rahul Gandhi is reported to have said in conversation with his party colleagues that Lalu was soft towards Narendra Modi. Yet another factor why Lalu is ‘angry’.
.....R K Sinha, M.P.
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