Bihar Congress president Akhilesh Prasad Singh on March 21 called on RJD chief Lalu Prasad, amid rumours that the latter has begun to allot party tickets for the Lok Sabha polls.
After meeting the RJD supremo, the Congress leader maintained that everything will be sorted out in good time, but ducked pointed queries about murmurs that Prasad has given tickets, unilaterally, for all the four seats going to polls in the first phase.
"I keep meeting Lalu ji. There is nothing new in it,” said Mr. Singh, who, incidentally, had started his political career with the RJD and was a minister in the UPA 1 government from that party’s quota.
He added that seat-sharing will be decided among constituents of the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ "in a few days", but did not reply to queries about the RJD reportedly moving forward on ticket distribution without taking allies into confidence.
Besides the Congress and the RJD, the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ comprises the CPI (ML) Liberation, the CPI and the CPI(M).
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On Wednesday, in an intriguing development, the RJD had held meetings of its State and national parliamentary party, after which Mr. Prasad was "authorised" to take decisions on party candidates and alliance partners.
There has been no official announcement from the RJD about its nominees, but party sources said that tickets have been given to prospective candidates for Gaya, Nawada, Jamui and Aurangabad.
Photos have gone viral on social media of Kumar Sarvajeet, the MLA from Bodh Gaya, purportedly receiving the party symbol from the RJD supremo for the reserved Gaya Lok Sabha seat, which his father had represented in the 1990s.
The sources also claimed that Abhay Kushwaha, a former MLA who quit Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) on Wednesday, was tipped to contest Aurangabad on an RJD ticket.
If the claim turns out to be true, it would bring the RJD into a direct confrontation with the Congress, which considers Aurangabad as one of the few seats in Bihar where it can give a good fight.
According to RJD sources, other seats where the party supremo has decided the candidates are Buxar, where State president Jagadanand Singh's son Sudhakar, the MLA from Ramgarh, was tipped to be in the fray.
Mr. Prasad is also understood to have agreed to field gangster-turned-politician Munna Shukla, a two-term former MLA, from the Vaishali Lok Sabha seat.
Besides, another dreaded history-sheeter Ashok Mahto is hitting headlines for having tied the knot in his late 50s, despite it being an "inauspicious" season, following a reported assurance from the RJD boss that the party will give ticket to his wife from Munger, which is currently held by JD(U) president Rajiv Ranjan Singh ‘Lalan’.
