Patna, May 26: Lalu Prasad today advocated unconditional alliance among the secular parties, including the RJD and JDU, to defeat the BJP with the rider of deliberating on the future chief minister after the Assembly elections.

"I am working overtime to ensure the unity of the secular forces. All the secular parties should unite without any precondition against the BJP," the RJD boss told The Telegraph to drive home his message.

On the issue of the chief ministerial candidate, Lalu said: "There are no differences among the secular outfits. We should not make it an issue of ego. We will sit together after the elections to decide on who will be the chief minister."

Lalu did not rule out Nitish Kumar as the future chief minister, nor did he commit unequivocally on his candidature.

The ambiguity on the part of Lalu to accept Nitish as the candidate for the office he is holding is believed to be one of the prime obstacles in the way of the JDU-RJD alliance in the state.

Also, Lalu's statement on the inclusion of former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi in the secular alliance ahead of meeting Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday vitiated the relationship between the JDU and the RJD.

Manjhi has projected Nitish as his bitter foe and is admittedly in touch with the BJP.

In his talks with The Telegraph over phone, Lalu skipped bringing the name of Manjhi back on his lips. His advocacy for Manjhi drew sharp reaction from the JDU camp with the party spokesperson, K.C. Tyagi, describing Manjhi as the "BJP's agent" and state JDU chief Bashishtha Narayan Singh rejecting the overture to bring the former chief minister back in the JDU "till the latter apologised for his betrayal to the party which offered him the highest post at its command".

Lalu's apparent backtracking on Manjhi notwithstanding, there is hardly any sign of smoothness in the strained relationship between the JDU and RJD with the RJD chief, so far, resisting from making any commitment on accepting Nitish as the chief ministerial candidate ahead of the Assembly elections.

Sources close to Lalu said the RJD boss was gunning for at least 120 to 125 seats for his party on the plea that the RJD had secured second position in 142 Assembly segments against the JDU's 43 and his party's vote share stood at over 22 per cent against the JDU's 15 per cent in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

The sources claimed that Lalu was not willing to accord credit to Nitish for the JDU winning 118 seats in the 2010 Assembly elections. He is believed to be busy impressing on Mulayam, who was named the president of the merged Janata parivar factions, that the JDU had won most of the seats because of its alliance with the BJP then. "Once the BJP is out of the JDU's scheme of things, the party is hardly left with a realistic vote base to claim the highest number of seats," Lalu was quoted as saying by a source.

Sources in the JDU said the party would in no way accept any proposal of fewer seats than the RJD, which has only 24 members against the JDU's 118 in the Assembly. Not accepting Nitish as the chief ministerial candidate unequivocally has also not gone down well.

"In numerous surveys, and also in popular perception, Nitish has been the best chief minister. He has performed stupendously on the formula of growth with justice. Why the Janata parivar or a broad secular alliance should hold back on projecting Nitish as the chief minister? Who is a better face than him?" asked a senior JDU leader, hoping that better sense would prevail.

"All the parties, including the RJD chief, will eventually accept Nitish as the face of the secular alliance in the state," he added.

Despite the signs of bitterness, both the camps exuded confidence that "Lalu and Nitish were seasoned leaders and they would sort out the things amicably". "The alliance will eventually take place. It is the need of the hour," a senior RJD leader said.

Sources said Lalu was extremely peeved at the "canard" being spread by "unscrupulous elements" that he was hobnobbing with the BJP after Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa was acquitted in a corruption case. "Some unscrupulous elements and conspirators in the BJP were spreading the canard to derail the unity of the secular forces," a source close to Lalu said, adding that the RJD chief was too big a leader to indulge in such petty manipulations.