New Delhi: With Bihar Assembly elections just months away, Chief Minister and Janata Dal United leader Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad are meeting Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav at his residence to discuss a possible alliance and iron out differences.
Sharad Yadav is also expected to hold talks with Lalu Prasad Yadav later in the day.
Earlier, Nitish met Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi at his residence in the national capital. JDU sources said that it is ready to go ahead without RJD if the seat sharing talks don't work out and is looking at a possible alliance with the Congress, NCP and Left parties.
JDU leader KC Tyagi said, "The final decision on seat sharing will be taken today. Nitish, Lalu Prasad and Sharad Yadav to discuss seat distribution."
The meeting assumes significance as Nitish had last week threatened to pull out of proposed RJD-JDU alliance. Meanwhile, Congress sources said Rahul and a sizeable section of the state Congress leaders have preferred Nitish Kumar as the chief ministerial face of a secular alliance in Bihar Assembly polls. State Congress in-charge CP Joshi also met Nitish on Saturday.
Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed said, "The Congress has always supported Nitish Kumar's candidature for chief ministerial post. Nitish is a good Chief Minister, otherwise Congress and RJD would not have supported him."
Refusing to comment on the meeting between Nitish and Rahul, Lalu said, "I don't know anything about Nitish meeting Rahul."
Sources also said that since the issue of merger is time-taking and the parties will need to broach the issue with the Election Commission to thrash out the legalities, the talks among them will primarily focus on finalising an alliance between Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar for Bihar polls.
Amidst speculation over the fate of alliance between the two parties, Sharad Yadav had on Thursday insisted that both the parties will fight the Assembly polls in the state together in alliance with Congress to challenge a resurgent BJP.
"The unity is bound to happen as it is the need of the hour. The nation needs it. All of us will contest election together. Congress, JDU, RJD, NCP and others will fight together," Yadav had said.
The remarks had come days after a bitter war of words between leaders of the two parties amid a speculation that the RJD chief was not keen to project Nitish as the chief ministerial candidate of the alliance.
RJD Vice President Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who had openly expressed his reservations against declaring Nitish's name as the chief minister candidate of the alliance outraging the JDU, had appealed to Congress President Sonia Gandhi to hammer out a solution and give shape to the anti-BJP alliance in Bihar.
The leaders from the two parties are expected meet the Congress leadership as well.
Sources in the JDU said, they are confident of an alliance saying, it will happen sooner than later.
Under one of the seat-sharing formulae that is being discussed, both RJD and JDU could contest 100 seats each while 43 could be left for Congress, CPI-M, CPI and the NCP. Bihar Assembly has 243 seats.
(With additional information from PTI)
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