‘What is this alliance?’: Lalu questions Congress’ usefulness in Bihar

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav on Sunday questioned the Congress’ usefulness as an ally and wondered if his party should have left an assembly bypoll seat in the state for the national party.

“Kya hota hai Congress ka gathbandhan? (What is this thing about an alliance with the Congress),” he said when asked about a virtual breakup of their alliance in the bypolls to two assembly seats over the RJD’s refusal to concede a seat to the national party.

“Should we have given one seat [to the Congress] for it to lose? So that it could lose even its deposit?” he said.

He also mocked Congress leader Bhakta Charan Das, the party’s in-charge for Bihar, who has been targeting the RJD.

Das had recently said the Congress is no longer part of the RJD-led alliance in the state.

Yadav’s comments came before he was scheduled to leave for Bihar where Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) is in a direct contest with the RJD to retain the two seats where the bypolls have been necessitated due to the death of their incumbent MLAs.

Yadav has been receiving treatment in New Delhi after he was relieved from AIIMS, and will be landing in Bihar after a long interval, during which his son Tejashwi has led the party and steered it creditably in the assembly polls.

The former Bihar chief minister said a decision on whether he will campaign for the RJD in the bypolls, scheduled for October 30, will be taken after consultation with doctors.

The RJD’s decision to field its candidate from Kusheshwar Asthan, a seat from where the Congress had contested in the 2020 assembly polls, has rankled the Congress.

The Congress’ poor show in the assembly polls compared to a much better strike rate of the RJD has prompted a section of the leaders of the Bihar party to question the national party’s role in the alliance.

The RJD believes that the Congress had been given more number of seats than its real strength in the state.