New Delhi:
Bihar has been presented with the prospect of a major political realignment after former union minister Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party reportedly opened alliance talks with Narendra Modi's BJP, some 12 years after it left the NDA in protest against the communal riots that rocked Gujarat.
With Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal, or RJD, and the Congress dragging their feet on finalising a seat-sharing deal for the 40 Lok Sabha seats from Bihar, the LJP indicated its dismay over the delay by initiating discussions with the BJP to forge a pre-poll alliance.
Unconfirmed reports of a meeting between Mr Paswan's film actor-turned-politician son, Chirag and BJP president Rajnath Singh, held four days ago, fuelled speculation about a possible realignment in Bihar.
Mr Paswan's trusted lieutenant Surajbhan Singh, a former lawmaker, gave a fillip to talks of a new axis developing in Bihar when he told reporters yesterday that "the alliance between the BJP and the LJP is confirmed. It will be officially announced soon."
Just last month, Mr Paswan had announced that his party, along with the RJD and the Congress, will contest the next Lok Sabha elections jointly in Bihar. Congress leaders see the fresh signals from the LJP as an exercise in "posturing".
Chirag denied reports about the meeting, but said at the same time that a final call of his party's future strategy would by the central parliamentary board. "Ours is a democratic party. As of now, there is no clarity on our future strategy. The parliamentary board will decide on the alliance issue,'' he told NTDV.
He, however, insisted that his party wanted a "respectable" number of seats. There are reports that the LJP was demanding 10 seats from the RJD-Congress combine, but the two parties were not willing to concede more than five. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the LJP had fielded its candidates from a dozen seats, but it drew a blank.