Greatest fan: Lalu Prasad

Patna, July 9: “Char saal pehle hame tumse pyar thaa; aaj bhi hai, aur kal bhi rahega” — Lalu Prasad resorted to an old Bollywood classic to shed light on his “true feelings” after the Left submitted a memorandum to the President, snapping a four-year-old tie with the Manmohan Singh government.

Confident that the UPA government “will win” the trust vote, the railway minister said: “Ideological constraints may have compelled the Left to leave us for the time being. But they are our allies. The Left will be with us when we form the next government.”

With this seemingly light statement Lalu Prasad shared a more serious message with his party and UPA allies regarding the conduct to be adopted with the Left in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. It is clear that the minister does not wish the UPA components to harbour “bitterness” towards the Left.

Sources close to Lalu Prasad revealed that the railway minister does not wish the Congress and other UPA allies to react in the manner that can lead to “permanent” breach among the “secular forces”.

“We should refrain from giving an impression that the Left is as pariah to us, as the communal BJP,” he confided.

Lalu Prasad told The Telegraph: “Don’t be confused. The Left may have snapped its ties due to ideological beliefs, but our (allied parties) hearts are in the same place. So is our resolve to smother L.K. Advani’s plan to become the Prime Minister of a secular India.”

“They (Left) were our friends when they supported our government. They have withdrawn support now — that does not mean that they are the enemies now,” he stressed.

The minister also defended the Prime Minister regarding the nuclear deal. “A country can’t develop unless it has power. We need nuclear energy to quench our increasing appetite for power. The Indo-US N-deal is the need of the hour… it is needed,” he stressed.

Inaugurating the regional office of CBSE here, a visibly relaxed minister said: “Things have been set right. The Manmohan Singh government will emerge stronger after the vote of confidence. The polls will take place in April, as planned. The BJP’s dream of forcing an early poll will remain just a dream.”

Incidentally, the Centre appears to have received a route map to stability with Mulayam Singh Yadav and his Samajwadi Party replacing the Left as UPA’s ally.

But things don’t seem so rosy with the Bihar Congress. The sword is said to he hanging over BPCC chief Sadanand Singh for his “failure” to play the role of an effective Opposition leader against Nitish.

“He (Sadanand) hardly goes out of his home. He did not bother to visit the kin of the five victims killed yesterday,” said a party leader, adding “Sadanand’s days are numbered.”

When contacted, the party’s state spokesperson Premchand Mishra admitted: “The failure of the successive Congress leaderships has made the party non-existent in Bihar.” Mishra hinted that the party’s central leadership was contemplating Sadanand’s replacement. A majority of his colleagues, too, are gunning for his head.

Meanwhile, Lalu Prasad visited the site under Phulwari Sharief police station, where five persons were butchered yesterday, and spoke to the relatives of the victims. He attacked the Nitish Kumar government for recurring incidents of murder in the state.