New Delhi, September 20: Buoyed by the Bihar assembly bypoll results, RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Saturday met Congress President Sonia Gandhi pleading for a secular alliance for the assembly elections in Jharkhand due soon.
Prasad met Gandhi for over 30-minutes and was accompanied by his close associate and former Union Minister Premchand Gupta.
Later, Gupta said secular parties like RJD and Congress should come together in the tribal dominated state where elections are due early next year.
RJD, LJP and Congress bagged 11 of the 18 seats in the just concluded Bihar Assembly by-elections, giving a jolt to the JD(U)-led NDA government in the state.
Gupta rubbished questions that Lalu met Gandhi in the wake of Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee planning to institute a CBI inquiry into the alleged job scam in the ministry during his tenure. “The issue did not come up”, he said.
In the last Lok Sabha elections in Jharkhand, Congress had entered into an alliance with the JMM, dumping the RJD.
Lalu’s meeting with Gandhi came close on the heels of the recent visit of an AICC committee to Jharkhand to assess the ground situation and find out with whom the party should align.
The members of the committee could not find any unanimity on whether the party should align with JMM, RJD or Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, headed by former chief minister Babulal Marandi.
While BJP is expected to contest alone, Congress leaders have so far not ruled out the possibility of going it solo.
The state came under Central rule early this year after chief minister Shibu Soren lost an assembly by-poll and no other alliance staked claim to form the government.
—Agencies