Uncertainty over the alliance between RJD and Congress has given an advantage to the BJP-LJP alliance in Bihar. Unlike in 2009, Lalu Prasad was trying hard for nearly two months in forging an alliance with the Congress and the LJP, but LJP forged alliance with the BJP.
Lalu aides say he has learnt a bitter lesson since the last Lok Sabha election when he contemptuously offered only three seats to the Congress. In December, after being released on bail in the fodder scam, Lalu Prasad, who broke his alliance with the Congress in 2009, said he would not repeat the mistake.
In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress-RJD-LJP combine won 29 Lok Sabha seats. But fighting separately in 2009, the RJD got only four seats, the Congress two and the LJP none.