Lalu meets Rahul; Congress likely to form alliance with RJD, LJP

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Ahead of the General Elections, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Monday met Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi in the national capital to discuss alliance between both the parties in Bihar. Recently, while praising Congress, Yadav had said, “The party is like an `umbrella` organisation of secular forces, which the country needs.” A few days ago, ex-Bihar CM had met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and had requested of a possible alliance between the two parties while promising not to repeat the mistakes of 2009 when RJD had a breakdown with the Congress. Though details of the meeting between Lalu Prasad and Rahul Gandhi are not available yet, the two leaders met for the second time in this month. However, they were understood to have discussed the current political situation and a possible alliance between the two parties. Earlier, Yadav had said that he has full confidence that an alliance of Congress-RJD will happen this time and will halt the march of "communal forces" in Bihar. The RJD chief had also expressed regret over the break-up of the tie-up with Congress in 2009 due to his mistake of offering only three seats to Congress and said the error will not be repeated this time. The RJD chief`s meeting is significant as it took place a day after senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh met LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan to discuss the issue. Singh is a strong votary of secular alliance and had spoken to Prasad in last few days as well. Both LJP and RJD have been praising Congress and making it clear that they want the ruling party to be an integral part of the "secular alliance" in Bihar, having 40 parliamentary seats. Senior Congress leaders have said that a decision on alliance is expected "very soon". There are two views in Congress over the issue but a dominant section of leaders favour an alliance with Prasad to fight a resurgent BJP, as per PTI. LJP, which had made it clear that it was with Congress, has been off late inching closer to Nitish Kumar`s JD(U) in Bihar but said it had left the final decision on including RJD or JD(U) in the "secular alliance" to the Congress. With PTI inputs