New Delhi, August 18: With the assembly by-polls nearing in Bihar, RJD chief Lalu Prasad today met Congress President Sonia Gandhi amid reports that his party is keen on a grand alliance of secular forces to take on the ruling NDA in the state.
However, Prasad tried to play down the political purpose of the meeting, saying, “There was no politics to discuss. I had come to raise the issue of drought in Bihar”
Incidentaly, the RJD had faced an electoral drought in the Lok Sabha polls in Bihar after it contested the elections in alliance with the LJP, leaving Congress out in the cold.
Sources, however, said that Prasad tried to impress upon Gandhi the need for a joint fight against BJP-JDU combine in Bihar and suggested that Congress, RJD and LJP should fight the September 10 assembly by-polls in the state together to avoid the division of secular votes.
Congress leaders including Bihar in-charge Jagdish Tytler have declared to go it alone in the assembly elections there indicating that the party has dumped both LJP and RJD, its erstwhile allies.
Sources say that LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan, who was also in favour of a joint fight had earlier impressed upon the RJD supremo to talk to Gandhi in this regard.
Prasad, who met Gandhi at her residence today after a four-month gap, meanwhile brushed aside suggestions of differences with the Congress chief saying, “All talk of differences are wrong. When there has been no fight, where is the question of any rapprochement.” .
—Agencies