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Amid continuing uncertainty over merger of the Janata Parivar, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Monday sought to break the ice with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, saying he was prepared for both-a merger between his party and the Janata Dal-United or a broad-based secular alliance-to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party in the state assembly polls.
Lalu, who after showing initial enthusiasm over the proposed merger between the two Bihar-centric parties, was said to have gone cold on the idea, acknowledged for the first time that lingering uncertainty was making the "environment unpleasant".
"I am now saying we should hurry up over the mega-alliance. The JD-U should talk to the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party also about their demands and wishes. If you want merger between the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the JD-U then (also) I am ready. Let us let us sit together today itself and finalise it.”
"All issues including that of leadership and chief ministerial candidate will be sorted out once there is finality about the alliance," Prasad, a former Bihar chief minister, told reporters.
One of the major stumbling blocks in the path to a merger between the RJD and JD-U was said to be the latter's insistence on designating Nitish Kumar as the merged entity's chief ministerial face. Lalu has hitherto refused to project Kumar as the future chief minister.
Lalu had also riled Kumar by publicly inviting former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, a protégé-turned-detractor of the incumbent CM, to join the broad secular alliance mooted by the RJD chief.
Several rounds of talks chaired by Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has been nominated to head six off-shoots of the Janata Parivar after the merger, have failed to sort out the differences between the two Bihar satraps.
The six splintered Janata Parivar' entities -- SP, RJD, JD-U, Janata Dal-Secular, INLD and Samajwadi Janata Party-- had in April announced that they had merged and formed a committee to discuss issues relating to the new party's name, election symbol etc. However, there has been no movement forward ever since.
Nitish had even skipped such a meeting in Delhi last month despite being in town, a day after Lalu broached the idea of roping in Manjhi in the proposed alliance.
"I telephoned Nitish Kumar one week ago and said days were passing and that we should now sit together quickly and decide about alliance, elections, seats and other such issues. Various kinds of talks doing the round in the market about us are making the environment unpleasant," Lalu said.
Kumar, he said, could not come as he was recuperating from an eye ailment but the JD-U National President, Sharad Yadav, met him at his residence for talks.
Lalu's sudden insistence on hastening alliance talks comes in the backdrop of the Congress' overtures to Kumar and the JD-U in the run up to the assembly polls.
Congress supports the JD-U government in Bihar and several of its state leaders, including state party president Ashok Chaudhary, have repeatedly reposed faith in Kumar's leadership and expressed willingness to contest the coming polls with him provided they are given a respectable share of seats for the assembly polls.
Lalu maintained he was "positive and not negative" about the proposed alliance but said trust between the RJD and JD-U was "very important" to take forward the talks. "Otherwise the enemy will benefit and we will be in trouble," he said.
"We are rising against the BJP. The entire country is hopeful about it. The talk of Janata Parivar merger originated from here and the talk of mega-alliance is also emanating from here itself," he said and asked leaders of the two parties to desist from making public statements about the alliance as it created "doubt and confusion".