Patna: LJP president Ramvilas Paswan today
said he was making sincere efforts to bring together all the
anti-NDA forces to dislodge the Nitish Kumar government in
Bihar and the Congress was free to chart its own course of
political and electoral strategy.
"I am making serious efforts to ensure electoral
understanding among all the secular parties, including
Congress, but the Congress, if it desires so, is free to chart
out its own course of political and electoral strategy for
Bihar," the former Union minister told reporters here.
He made the statement when his attention was drawn to
yesterday's statement of senior Congress leader Jagdish
Tytler, ruling out his party aligning with any regional
parties in Bihar where assembly elections are due towards the
end of next year.
Paswan said he had engaged his party's senior leaders to
take up with the AICC leaders, including Congress President
Sonia Gandhi's political Secretary Ahmed Patel, the need for
firming up electoral ties with RJD and LJP to keep communal
forces at bay in Bihar.
"We can't help it, if the Congress thinks otherwise,"
Paswan remarked.
He asserted that his alliance with Lalu Prasad's RJD
would remain "intact".
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, August 11, 2009, 20:12