The chasm between AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi and RJD supremo lalu Prasad is far from being abridged. While Rahul is making his first visit to poll-bound Bihar on September 19 to address a rally in west Champaran, lalu has declined to share dais with him.
Rahul will address a rally at Ramnagar which is going to be the first major public meeting of the Congress and to be attended by the leaders of allies, including the JD(U) and the RJD.
While lalu is keeping himself away from Rahul's rally, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has given his consent to attend it. The RJD supremo said he would not be able to attend it due to his prior engagement in the first phase of election. He has promised to send his son Tejaswi Yadav and his `samdhi' Ajay Yadav, a former Congress Minister of Haryana to the rally.
State Congress president Ashok Chaudhary accompanied by AICC secretary Kl Sharma and other leaders met lalu and Nitish and handed them over the official invitation to attend the September 19 rally which is likely to be attended by many top Congress leaders.
lalu is rather unhappy with Rahul when he prevailed on the UPA-II Government to withdraw an Ordinance which meant to protect the convicted politicians from disqualification in September 2013. It was suspected that the Ordinance had been brought to protect lalu who was certain to be convicted in a fodder scam case in Ranchi. The RJD chief had been convicted after the Ordinance was taken back. lalu had blamed Rahul for his disqualification from contesting polls and termination of his lok Sabha membership.
There were also reports that Rahul was not very keen to share dais with lalu. However, AICC president Sonia Gandhi had no such reservation and she attended the Swabhiman rally on August 30 in Patna's Gandhi Maidan which was jointly organised by the grand alliance and lalu was the main speaker.