General elections are still over a year away but the recent events in some Bihar-based parties affiliated to the NDA are giving indications that they are not very comfortable in the BJP-led ruling alliance.
A couple of the allies, Rashtriya lok Samata Party (RlSP) and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) are not happy with the going on in the NDA and their possible side-lining is compelling them to take a different line of action before the bugles of the lok Sabha election is sounded. RlSP is headed by Upendra Kushwaha who is Union Minister of State in the Ministry of HRD and former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi is the founder of HAM.
Kushwaha recently organised a human chain in Patna for the educational reforms in Bihar which was largely ignored by the BJP and JD(U) but he was joined by senior RJD leaders Shivanand Tewary and Ramchandra Purbey hinting that the two parties are closing ranks. On the record Kushwaha denies it but off the record leaders of RlSP say they might join the front led by the RJD before the elections.
Recently senior RJD leader Raghubansh Prasad Singh publicly claimed that both RlSP and HAM would quit NDA and fight elections in alliance with the RJD. The lalu Prasad’s party has reportedly offered good number of seats to RlSP for lok Sabha election in 2019 and Assembly election in 2020. In the NDA the party is unlikely to get as much seat as it had been given in 2014 polls.
Kushwaha’s bigger problem is Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who he does not see eye to eye and was unhappy when the JD(U) was admitted in the NDA in July last. When Nitish formed Government after aligning with the NDA he ignored RlSP in taking the party in his Cabinet. His supporters have already started saying that Kushwaha would be the CM face in the 2020 elections and RlSP was ready to align with any party which supports this idea.
The RlSP feels that under the NDA their party has very little scope to widen its base. In the last Assembly polls the party could win only two seats. In that scenario the party is not sure to get more seats to contest. On the other hand, the RJD has assured RlSP more seats as the lalu led party is likely to contest more than 150 seats leaving remaining about 80 seats to its possible allies.