Patna: RJD chief Lalu Prasad's statement on Monday that he would never again join hands with chief minister Nitish Kumar is being taken with a pinch of salt.

"There is an old saying that socialists depart just to meet again," remarked former MP Shivanand Tiwari. "Egos play a great role in splits in Indian politics, more so with socialist leaders. They have bigger egos. But Lalu ji has said this in the context of Nitish's betrayal. But Nitish returned to the same BJP he had sworn never to return to."

Shivanand, son of Ramanand Tiwari, one of the tallest socialist leaders from Bihar, has himself done his twists and turns in politics, being first with Nitish, then moving to Lalu, then again with Nitish and currently back again with Lalu. In fact, he was welcomed back into the RJD even though he had filed a fodder scam case against Lalu and was expelled from the JDU even after helping Nitish. He used the analogy to say Lalu was a better human being.

"But why blame Baba (as Shivanand is known in political circles) alone," asked a socialist leader who did not want to be quoted. He said wavering stances of love and hate is a trademark of the socialist movement in Bihar. "In the 1960s, there was a convention of socialists at Allahabad to see the merger of two socialist factions. But by the time it ended there were three factions," said former fime-time MLA Ganesh Yadav. He stressed that he did not consider either Lalu or Nitish outputs of the socialist movement.

Lalu, Nitish, Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Yadav have held sway over Bihar politics in the post-Mandal era. But their ties with each other have blown hot and cold intermittently. In the early 1990s, Lalu and Sharad Yadav were considered thick with each other. But by 1995 Sharad broke off from Lalu to first join hands with Paswan and then Nitish. Lalu swore he would never again send an "outsider (Sharad is originally from Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh)" to Parliament from Bihar. But Sharad rejoined Lalu in 2017.