Almost an year ago the two foes-turned-friends Nitish Kumar and lalu Prasad, both badly mauled in the 2014 lok Sabha elections, had joined hands to rally against the surging BJP and shared common election stage at least at two places in the by-election to the Assembly. Their friendship after over a two-decade long animosity paid dividend and their alliance scored over the BJP-led alliance.
Now the two strong regional satraps are readying to go for joint campaign in the all crucial Assembly election in the autumn. With the two parties, RJD and JD(U), stitching a working alliance the top leaders of both the parties are in parleys for joint poll campaign which is likely to begin from the next month. The Congress and the NCP are two other allies.
The joint campaign will be in retaliation to the NDA’s joint programme held here last Thursday which was attended by BJP president Amit Shah and all the presidents of the parties aligned to the BJP.
The NDA leaders are accusing the RJD and JD(U) for carrying ahead separate programmes and teasing lalu Prasad that he is being sidelined by Nitish Kumar as his face is missing from all the billboards which project only Nitish. Shah and other leaders of the NDA alliance that day at Gandhi Maidan during the launch of their Parivartan Yatra were heard saying that lalu’s alliance partners JD(U) and Congress were treating him as pariah; neither allowing his picture alongside Nitish nor permitting him to share dais with Sonia Gandhi.
JD(U) president Sharad Yadav who camped here for three days during which he held series of lengthy meetings with both lalu and Nitish. He told them that after the alliance the two parties from top to bottom level should initiate joint campaign instead of separate programmes. “The joint campaign helps uniting the workers of the parties and give a positive signal to the voters,” he said.
State JD(U) chief Bashistha Narain Singh said once the party’s `Har Ghar Dastak’ programme concludes by the end of this month, joint poll campaign will be chalked out and in all probability it will begin from first or second week of August. JD(U) general secretary RCP Singh the joint campaign will be an effective tool to mobilize the masses. Singh also supported lalu’s announcement of countering BJP’s hi-tech motorized GPS and lED fitted raths with 1,000 horse driven tamtams.
There is palpable feeling in the JD(U) rank and file that leaders of RJD and Congress, particularly lalu, should be there alongside Nitish on the billboards else it would send a wrong message to the supporters of RJD which are still not very comfortable with the decision of their leadership for alliance with the JD(U). “If Nitish is averse of sharing a photograph with our leader, how he could share dais with him and go for joint campaign,” said a senior RJD leader. RJD vice president Raghubansh Prasad Singh too took a jibe at Nitish for only his own publicity in the name of alliance.