New Delhi: Congress seems to be seriously considering a pre-poll alliance with Lalu Prasad led RJD and Ramvilas Paswan led LJP in Bihar before 2014 general elections.
Earlier the Congress was trying to strike an alliance with Nitish Kumar led JD(U) but the cold response of Nitish Kumar coupled with the release of Lalu from jail seems to have changed the balance in favour of an alliance with Lalu and Paswan.
Bihar Congress chief Ashok Chowdhary today met party Vice President Rahul Gandhi, a day after he held consultations with party chief Sonia Gandhi and briefed both of them about the prevailing political scenario in the state after the break-up of BJP-JD(U) alliance.
Chowdhary's meeting with the Congress Vice President at his residence took place for half-an-hour. He had met Sonia Gandhi in Parliament House yesterday.
He was called by both the leaders for a briefing about the situation in the state. An indication of Congress warming up to the RJD chief was available, when the Congress President called to greet him after he got bail in a fooder scam case.
“Congress President Sonia Gandhi had telephoned me after my release from Ranchi jail. She graciously extended greetings to me and expressed happiness over my release,” Prasad had told reporters in Patna yesterday.
Prasad, who was the Railway Minister in the UPA-I government and is considered very close to the Congress chief, had fallen out during UPA-II after an acrimony over seat sharing for 2009 Lok Sabha polls, which resulted in breakup of the RJD-LJP and Congress alliance.
RJD was the second largest constitutent in UPA-I after Congress with 22 seats in Lok Sabha.
There is a feeling in Congress that an alliance with RJD and LJP could repeat the 2004 magic, when the three parties had together walked away with 29 of the 40 seats in the states.
