Rabri Devi, RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s wife and former Bihar chief minister, said on Friday that the Opposition Grand Alliance would bring Nitish Kumar into its fold “if needed”, at a time the JDU is feeling increasingly hemmed in by the BJP that has now become the senior partner in the ruling alliance.
“Our party leaders will discuss and take a decision on bringing Nitish to the Grand Alliance. He will be brought into our fold, if needed. I have no objection to him being included in our alliance,” RJD leader Rabri told reporters on the occasion of her birthday at her 10 Circular Road residence.
Although several RJD leaders have been claiming that Nitish should join hands with the Grand Alliance and that 17 of his JDU MLAs were preparing to switch sides, this is the first time someone from the RJD’s first family has broached the topic. Some RJD leaders had also suggested that Nitish should take a shot at the Prime Minister’s chair and leave Bihar’s chief ministership to Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, Lalu’s younger son.
Rabri’s comments come at a time discomfort is palpable in the JDU after the BJP welcomed six of the seven MLAs of the JDU in Arunachal Pradesh into the party. The JDU, which has cried betrayal and treachery, sees a threat in Bihar too with a more powerful BJP asserting itself.
The JDU, with just 43 seats in the 243-member Assembly, has for the first time become the junior partner of the BJP, with 74 MLAs, since forging an alliance in Bihar in 2005.
The RJD with 75 seats is the single largest party in the House. The NDA, which has 125 seats, has a thin majority with the Opposition breathing down its neck with 110 seats.
Rabri’s comments also indicate a softening of Lalu Prasad’s family’s stand on Nitish, who rode to power in 2015 in alliance with the RJD but broke ranks two years later to return to the NDA and form a fresh government. It led to much bitterness between the RJD and the JDU.
RJD sources said Lalu, currently incarcerated in Ranchi after conviction in fodder scam cases, has instructed his party leaders to go easy on Nitish while criticising the NDA government in the state. The sources said the Arunachal developments had left the JDU worried about its future.
Rabri referred to such concerns on Friday, warning that the “BJP could break the JDU in Bihar also”.
She said the “immoral alliance of the JDU and the BJP has turned Bihar into a battlefield where the two parties are going to fight a war for supremacy.”
The former chief minister criticised Nitish over his recent visits to different corners of the state to inspect archaeological sites and development work, saying law and order has gone for a toss.
Rabri referred to the state government’s transfer of 29 IAS and 38 IPS officers late on Thursday night, saying this had been done at the behest of the BJP and it indicated that Nitish’s writ no longer ran in Bihar.
