New Delhi: After weeks of wrangling and war of words, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad finally on Sunday announced that their parties would contest the Assembly elections later in the state as an alliance.
Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United and RJD will now discuss the number of seats their respective parties would contest. Bihar Assembly has 243 seats.
However, there is no clarity on who will be the chief ministerial candidate. JDU sources have said that the party is not ready for any compromise on Nitish Kumar's leadership role. There's also no confirmation whether the Samajwadi party or the Congress will join this alliance.
The coming together of friends-turned-foes-turned-friends Nitish Kumar and Lalu was prompted by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance which is eye power in Bihar hoping to carry on its superlative show in the state during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav said all issues have been sorted out and RJD and JDU have decided to form a six-member committee to discuss seat-sharing. "All issues have been sorted out. We are going to fight elections in Bihar as an alliance. A committee has been formed to look into issues of seat sharing and that committee will submit its report," he said.
The announcement came after both the leaders met Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav at his residence in New Delhi to discuss their differences.
Earlier, Nitish had met Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi at his residence in the national capital.
Amidst speculation over the fate of alliance between the two parties, Sharad Yadav had on Thursday insisted that both the parties will fight the Assembly polls in the state together in alliance with Congress to challenge a resurgent BJP.
"The unity is bound to happen as it is the need of the hour. The nation needs it. All of us will contest election together. Congress, JDU, RJD, NCP and others will fight together," Yadav had said.
The remarks had come days after a bitter war of words between leaders of the two parties amid a speculation that the RJD chief was not keen to project Nitish as the chief ministerial candidate of the alliance.
RJD Vice President Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who had openly expressed his reservations against declaring Nitish's name as the chief minister candidate of the alliance outraging the JDU, had appealed to Congress President Sonia Gandhi to hammer out a solution and give shape to the anti-BJP alliance in Bihar.
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