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Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Friday left for Delhi to placate Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose party stormed out of the nascent anti-Bharatiya Janata Party grand alliance for Bihar assembly elections on Thursday.
Lalu, who also has family ties with the Uttar Pradesh strongman, left Patna at noon to persuade Mulayam to continue with the alliance but refused to take questions from the media.
The SP had quit the alliance complaining about "humiliation" at the hands of major partners who did not consult the party before finalising seat-sharing arrangement. Under the seat-sharing formula, the Janata Dal-United was allotted 100 seats, the RJD 98 and the Congress 40 in the 243-member assembly, while the remaining five were left for SP, which it found inadequate.
Meanwhile, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has exuded confidence that the issue would be resolved and SP would return to the secular grouping.
"We are trying to figure out as to what happened that SP took the decision to quit the grand secular alliance," he told reporters.
"I had a talk with Mulayam Singh Yadav day before yesterday and I did not have the inkling that SP would take the decision to quit. Shivpal Singh Yadav (Mulayam's brother and UP minister) was sent to represent the party in the 'Swambhiman rally' on August 30. No final word has come from SP. JD-U President Sharad Yadav met the SP chief yesterday and will meet him again today. RJD President Lalu Prasad has also spoken to the SP chief," he said, adding Mulayam Singh Yadav was respected by all of them.
"We worked very hard for merger of splinter parties of old Janata Parivar which due to some reasons could not be achieved. But, that is another issue," he added.
Image: Lalu and Mulayam pictured here in better days.