‘Feud in JD (U) over pact with Lalu apparent’

PATNA: The state is set for the byelection to the 10 assembly seats on Thursday and the BJP on Wednesday claimed the NDA in the state would bowl the three-party ‘mahagathbandhan’ out on zero.
“As the people’s mood suggest, the BJP and its allies would win all the 10 seats. Public are against the mahagathbandhan comprising JD (U), RJD and Congress. They would be clean bowled on zero,” said state BJP chief Mangal Pandey.The BJP has fielded its candidates in nine out of 10 constituencies and LJP on one.
According to Pandey, the JD (U) is already beset with ‘internal strife’ owing to its alliance with the RJD, as has been indicated by the statement of former minister and JD (U) leader Shakuni Choudhary. Other JD (U) leaders have also spoken publicly about the “humiliating treatment that RJD chief Lalu Prasad is giving to party leader and former CM Nitish Kumar in his public speeches”. Pandey said this feeling has percolated down the line in the JD (U) and it will have its impact on the byelection.
On Tuesday, Choudhary had referred to the insult heaped on Nitish by Lalu during stumping and also said Nitish had gone away from party workers and also became arrogant.
Pandey said the use of the nomenclature, ‘jungle raj-II’, by the BJP for the politics of ‘mahagathbandhan’ (grand alliance) is apt as incidents of crime have dramatically increased and criminals have started influencing state politics again after they were marginalized during the NDA-I rule. They have started operating from inside the jails, he alleged.
Pandey, who was flanked by party’s state spokesmen Sanjay Singh Tiger and Usha Vidyarthi, MLAs, besides Sanjay Mayukh (MLC), said even a person like water resources department minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary was feeling “concealed anger, unease and discomfort” at the mention of ‘jungle raj-II’ for the mahagathbandhan.