Perplexing ties of Bihar parties

The ruling JD(U), led aggressively by chief minister and the party’s star campaigner Nitish Kumar, made a U-turn from its growing proximity to the Congress a few months. Even as the JD(U)’s hopes about the Centre conceding special state status to Bihar turned futile, the party strengthened its anti-Congress stance soon after the RJD-Congress alliance was finalised. Yet, it is with the support of four Congress MLAs that Mr Kumar’s JD(U) government is currently surviving.

The JD(U) needed the support after it ended its association with the BJP in June. The JD(U)’s numerical strength in the Assembly has worsened in the poll season, but both the Congress and the JD(U) have maintained a silence on their solidarity in the Assembly.

Former top RJD leader Ramkripal Yadav stunned many by ditching his long-time mentor and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, who had sent him to the Rajya Sabha.

While Ramkripal Yadav is now contesting the Lok Sabha poll in Patliputra on a BJP ticket, he continues to be a RS member from the RJD. The RJD chief did not seek his disqualification from the Rajya Sabha, apparently out of concern for the Yadav community sentiments.

Similarly, LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan, who had been a long-time ally of the RJD, stunned all by siding with the BJP. But Mr Paswan, who had lost the 2009 LS polls and was then helped to his RS membership with the active support of the RJD chief, retains his berth in the Upper House.

The RJD-Congress alliance displayed contradictions when the RJD chief was not seen in the rallies addressed by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi. In the bypolls to five Assembly constituencies to be held simultaneously with the LS polls, both the Congress and the RJD are fielding candidates against each other.