Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad & Jitan Ram Manjhi

September 6: The state parliamentary affairs minister, Shravan Kumar, floats the idea of including the RJD and the Congress in Jitan Ram Manjhi ministry

September 10: Chief minister Manjhi says Nitish Kumar would lead the alliance and would be the chief minister again after the Assembly elections because he represents the “wish” of the people

September 11: Senior RJD leader and former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh rejects the idea of the RJD sharing power and prescribes a watchdog role for the Lalu Prasad-led party for the JDU government

The views expressed by the senior leaders of the grand alliance within a span of a week reflect the state of affairs in the parties which hurriedly came together in the August bypolls in 10 Assembly seats to slam brakes on the BJP’s advances in Bihar.

The BJP-led NDA had won 31 of the state’s 40 Lok Sabha seats in the general election held in May. It got four against the six of the alliance in the bypolls.

Despite the grand alliance bearing fruits, the leaders from the three parties have been singing different tunes on who would be the leader of the alliance, who would be the chief ministerial candidate and whether the RJD and the Congress should join the Jitan Manjhi ministry or not, reflecting the vicious contradictions still ailing the alliance.

The contradictions, in fact, are rooted to the shape, size and personalities of the three partners. The JDU has 118 MLAs and is the biggest partner in the alliance. The party has Nitish, who resigned as the chief minister owning the moral responsibility of the party’s defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, keeping himself on the “high moral pedestal” to lead the battle against the BJP in Bihar.

Lalu Prasad’s RJD, which has only 26 MLAs in the Assembly, notched up 22 per cent of the popular votes against the JDU’s 15.8 per cent in the Lok Sabha polls. The political observers firmly believe that Lalu and his RJD were sitting over the “bigger pile” of votes than Nitish’s JDU that got reflected in the Lok Sabha polls. Lalu is also the leader of his Yadav caste that constitutes over 15 per cent of the state’s voters and is the single largest caste of Bihar.

Lalu suffers a big handicap, though. The law has barred him from contesting any poll or occupying constitutional position after his conviction in a fodder scam case last year. In such a situation, his family members — particularly the ones active in the party — and some ambitious senior leaders might put pressure on him to have the leader of the alliance or the chief minister’s s nominee from the RJD’s stock citing its bigger share of votes.

The Congress, which joined the grand alliance ahead of the bypolls without much fuss, has so far shown no enthusiasm on Manjhi or other JDU cadres clamouring for Nitish — who resigned as the chief minister on his own after staying almost eight years in office — to be declared as the grand alliance’s leader and the candidate for the chief ministerial position.

Asked about the JDU’s clamour in Nitish’s favour or the party’s offer to the Congress to join the Jitan Manjhi ministry, the Congress legislature party leader in Bihar Assembly, Sadanand Singh, said: “We can’t comment on these issues. The party high command will take a call on these matters.”

The seat sharing among the three partners ahead of the bypolls was just the beginning of the shape of the emergence of anti-Sangh parivar politics. “Much is to be done to cement the bond. It will require sacrifice from the leaders and cadre of the alliance to strengthen the battle against the BJP,” said the RJD national spokesperson, Manoj Jha, refraining from commenting on who should be the leader of the alliance.

Sources in the grand alliance said Lalu, Nitish and senior Congress leaders would have several sessions to thrash out the contradictions to the “satisfaction” of their respective cadre and support base. “It will not be an easy and smooth affair,” admitted a senior JDU spokesman on the condition of anonymity.