Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) Executive President Hemant Soren on Saturday cleared the air around Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) fate in the UPA alliance for the upcoming Assembly elections here after meeting incarcerated RJD chief Lalu Prasad in Ranchi. The Leader of Opposition, who also happens to be a frontrunner for the Chief Minister’s chair from the Grand Alliance fold here, said that RJD will remain a part of the alliance and campaign jointly for the polls.
Speculations about RJD’s dwindling stake in the alliance were rife after the party did not show any representation in an important press conference addressed by the Congress party and JMM in Ranchi on Friday. Insiders in JMM said that RJD had staked claim on a few seats that were considered the former’s bastion – this had purportedly become a bone of contention between the two parties.
“I visited Laluji to seek his blessings for the elections. RJD will remain a part of the alliance,” said Soren soon after meeting Prasad at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) on Saturday. Soren, however, did not comment on the seats that would be given to RJD.
While Prasad still continues to be one of the stalwarts of politics in Bihar and Jharkhand, his party has lost considerable ground to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and others here since 2014. For the first time since the formation of the party, it failed to send any of its leaders to the lower house of the parliament in the 2019 General Elections – a fact that political gurus see as an evidence to RJD’s fast declining popularity in Jharkhand.
The Congress party and JMM announced the seat sharing equation of the alliance on Friday. The allies decided to give 43 seats to JMM, 31 to Congress party and seven to RJD. The equation is in accordance with the decision taken by the allies during the Lok Sabha polls–Congress party will play the role of a big brother in the General Elections and the JMM will lead from the front in Assembly polls.
Soren on Saturday also said that he will soon meet Congress President Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi and thank her for being a part of the alliance. He said that the confusion over RJD’s claim on certain seats will be addressed soon. JMM, Congress party, RJD and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik (JVM-P) had joined hands for the General Elections held earlier this year. However, they could not stop the BJP juggernaut from winning 12 of 14 parliamentary seats here. The parties have said that Assembly elections were a different ballgame and the tables could turn.