Raghuvansh Prasad Singh

Patna, Nov. 4: The battle for being the “big brother” is on between allies RJD-JDU.

The continuation of the grand alliance is facing a major hurdle. Though there have been rumblings over the issue in the recent past, finally numbers have been thrown in the public domain.

Again, it’s former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh who has kicked off the controversy. Raghuvansh specified that under the grand alliance, the RJD would contest from 123 seats, JDU 90 and 30 would go to the Congress.

“The alliance will have to be made on the basis of the latest elections. The 2010 Assembly election is not the latest elections. The 2014 Lok Sabha polls is,” he said on Tuesday, stressing that the RJD would play the role of big brother in the alliance, while the JDU is the “younger sibling”.

Raghuvansh, who has already irked JDU leaders by publicly denouncing the disqualification of JDU rebel MLAs as a “murder of democracy”, has created outrage in the JDU. “We are the bigger party. How can the RJD get more seats? If the RJD leaders have wishes to fight more seats than they deserve, they should keep it to themselves,” said JDU MLC Sanjay Singh.

The political focus is on the meeting of RJD leaders at Lalu Prasad’s residence on November 6 in Delhi. A section of RJD leaders have been saying that the meeting has been called by the RJD chief to formulate the basis of the grand alliance in Bihar. However, the outrage in JDU over the statement of Raghuvansh made the party backtrack. “The meeting called by Laluji on November 6 is apolitical,” said RJD’s national spokesperson Illiyas Hussain.

There are 118 sitting MLAs in the current Assembly. “Sitting MLAs getting tickets is the first condition imposed when an alliance between two parties are discussed. Therefore, there is no chance of the party agreeing to contest less than 118 seats,” said a JDU leader, stressing that the alliance in the Assembly elections is always formed on the basis of the results of the last Assembly polls and not the Lok Sabha polls.

The Congress leaders in the state are also not amused over the numbers specified by Raghuvansh. The party has already been saying that it was ready to contest the elections alone. “Who is Raghuvansh Prasad Singh to specify the number of seats? The numbers will ultimately be decided by Sonia Gandhi, Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar,” said AICC member Umakant Singh.

Many believe the former minister was not speaking out his own views. “The RJD is testing the JDU and trying to find out its views on the numbers of seats. I am sure Nitish and Lalu are consistently in touch over the issue,” said another senior JDU leader.