The constituent leaders feel that the massive response to Tejashvi’s Jana Vishwas Yatra has made Lalu adopt a tough stance towards the allies. In Bihar Mahagathbandhan there are three major parties—RJD, Congress and Left led by CPII(ML) Liberation—but he has been using bullying tactics to force them to agree to his offer. Initially he has agreed to the Congress’s proposal to contest 9 seats. But now he is not willing to give it more than six seats. The same is the case with the Left. He has offered three seats to CPI(ML) and one each to CPI and CPI(M).

The worst victim of the strong arm tactics of Lalu has been the Congress. While Lalu is not willing to provide Purnea seat to Pappu Yadav whose wife is already a Congress Rajya Sabha member and also recently merged his party with Congress he has also fielded his candidate from Begusarai denying the seat to Kanhaiya Kumar of CPI. Lalu has already announced the names of RJD candidates for 16 seats and is likely to announce six more names after Holi holiday.

Congress leaders were hopeful of a positive solution after Lalu meeting Sonia Gandhi. Lalu accompanied by Tejashvi had already left for Delhi three days back. But so fat no words from Congress high command have reached to the state Congress leaders. There is lurking apprehension that Lalu was trying to split the Congress leadership by accommodating some of them and punching away others. Still, the Congress leaders of Bihar are hoping for some intervention from Sonia Gandhi with whom Lalu has cordial relationship.

One such case is Lalu taking away one seat for MLC from the Congress. The seat was held by senior Congress leader Prem Chandra Mishra, who in fact had started his political career as NSUI leader some fifty years ago. Lalu with the consent of the state PCC chief allotted it to his own party candidate. In lieu he helped the PCC chief to get elected as the Rajya Sabha member. However state chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh claimed; "I keep meeting Laluji. There is nothing new in it”. Singh had started his political career with the RJD and was a minister in the UPA 1 government from that party's quota.

The delay in deciding the seats has unnerved the Congress leaders. At least five senior Congress leaders have urged their leadership to exploit the good will created in the state due to Rahul’s Nyay Yatra. They point out that Lalu has been using the situation at the cost of Congress. They have expressed unhappiness with the senior Mahagathbandhan member for unilaterally deciding on candidates for four seats going to polls in the first phase on April 19.

The Congress leaders assert that though the party has lost its support base, even then in 2019 it had managed to win one seat while RJD did not win even one seat. Although the RJD has not come out with any official statement of going alone to the polls a photograph of Lalu sitting on a cot under a mango tree and handing over poll symbol to Jay Prakash Narayan Yadav has gone viral. Ironically he did not consult the constituent leaders before announcing his candidates.

These leaders alleged that Lalu was not adhering to the coalition dharma. Nikhil Kumar former Governor of Nagaland and ex Delhi police commissioner alleged;“Coalition dharma is being violated. Tickets are being distributed by (by the RJD) without finalising seat-sharing with alliance partners”. His father and former CM Satyendra Narayan Sinha represented the constituency from 1971 to 1984 while his wife Shyama was the Aurangabad MP from 1999 to 2004.

Former Katihar MP Tariq Anwar also expressed dissatisfaction with the RJD’s “unilateral seat-sharing”. “The way RJD chief Lalu Prasad has been distributing party symbols is not a good sign for the alliance. This is against coalition ethics. This is not the way our alliance should function,”

State Congress leaders are not sure that how far Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will succeed in keeping Lalu under check and make him concede the demand of state Congress. Meanwhile a very horrid allegation of selling the tickets in lieu of money by the state Congress leaders has been made by some RJD leaders. They allege that the Congress forces the mahagathbandhan for more seats only to sell them. Nevertheless, the Congress leaders ridiculed these allegations and described it as an attempt to gag the voice of Congress in the state.

It was expected that after Nitish parting of ways and joining hands with the BJP, the INDIA bloc would collectively select the candidates for the 16 seats which were held by JD(U) of Nitish. But on the contrary Lalu has been out to grab those seats. Sources maintain least bothered of the sentiment of the allies’ Lalu has been going ahead with handing poll symbols to its candidates. Misa, Lalu’s eldest daughter, had unsuccessfully contested from Pataliputra seat twice in the past – in 2014 and 2019 has again been nominated. Though Lalu is averse to concede Purnea seat to Pappu Yadav, he has agreed to field gangster-turned-politician Munna Shukla, a two-term former MLA, from the Vaishali Lok Sabha seat.

Utter confusion also prevails in the Left circle. The negotiating team of the CPI(ML) is yet to know about the seats it would be offered. However a senior leader said that Lalu has offered it Nalanda seat instead of Siwan, the strongest base of the CPI(ML). Sources maintain that Lalu has been trying to grab the support base of CPI(ML) for its gain. He knows it well that CPI(ML) has managed to cultivate a strong base in Bihar. This was in fact in 2020 when CPI(ML) had ,managed to win 12 assembly seats out of 19 seats it had contested.

Incidentally the victory of Dhananjay of the CPIML Liberation-backed AISA in the JNU Student Union election has sent a message that the it has a strong support base amongst the youth of Bihar. Dhananjay, a PhD scholar at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, is the son of a retired police officer from Gaya in Bihar. He grew up in Ranchi. Dhananjay is expected to boost CPI(ML)-L election campaign in his home state organizing the educated youth of the state. (IPA Service)