The grand alliance is still working on identifying the seats from which its partners would contest the Assembly elections.

"The seat identification process is still on," former chief minister Rabri Devi said after chairing the state parliamentary board, which authorised RJD chief Lalu Prasad to not only select the alliance partners, but name the candidates of the party also. "The central parliamentary board will hold a meeting on September 17 and then the names of the candidates would be announced," said state party chief Ram Chandra Purbey.

Even the JDU national general secretary, K.C. Tyagi, said it would take a couple of days to clear the seat-sharing process.

Though the RJD and JDU claim that identification of seats are "hassle-free", insiders said the RJD and Congress are staking claims to seats represented by sitting JDU MLAs.

Seats like Morwa, Raghopur, Barbigha, Samastipur, Parsa and Jehanabad, which are represented by the JDU at present, are being claimed by its ally. Lalu and Rabri's son Tejaswi has openly staked his claim on Raghopur in Vaishali district. "Raghopur is a traditional seat of the RJD. Both my mother and father have contested from it. We have family ties from that area," he said on Tuesday.

Though state JDU president Bashishtha Narayan Singh has hinted that his party was ready to make "some sacrifices", JDU leaders are apprehensive that the "sacrifice" may be too large.

The other problem facing the grand alliance is that it does not appear to be sure on how to approach All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi, who has announced his entry in Bihar by contesting seats from the Muslim-dominated Seemanchal area, threatening the minority votes of the grand alliance. Nitish on Tuesday dismissed the threat posed by the AIMIM, saying that it had failed to make any impact in the recent Bangalore municipal polls. However, senior RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh went public later by stating that the grand alliance should include Owaisi to stop BJP and its allies in Bihar. Shortly after that, RJD chief Lalu Prasad tweeted in Hindi that any religious fanatic force was not welcomed in a "progressive alliance".

Owaisi was in Patna on Tuesday to participate in a function of a private TV channel. He declared that though the BJP was "enemy No. 1", he would contest elections from Seemanchal. Owaisi reacted to Lalu's tweet by declaring that he had come in 2005 to campaign for Lalu's party. "Then, I was not a religious fanatic," Owaisi said sarcastically.

The RJD was hard-pressed to explain Owaisi's words though. "It was his (Raghuvansh's) personal opinion. Not the party's. I do not recall Owaisi coming to campaign for us in 2005. However, we are of the opinion that anyone has the right to contest from anywhere," said senior party leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui.

RJD sources indicate they would prefer to go for "soft secularism" so that it does not polarise voters on the communal line. "The presence of the likes of Owaisi threatens to do what the BJP has been trying to do," said a senior RJD leader.