Lalu joins hands with Nitish to counter Modi

Prasad stopped short of commenting on whether this alliance will continue in the Bihar Assembly elections, too, scheduled for next year

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s massive success in the Lok Sabha elections has brought arch-rivals Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar on the same side. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief, Prasad, on Thursday announced unconditional support to the state's Janata Dal (United) government, led by Jitan Ram Manjhi.

The RJD chief said his party has decided to support the JD(U) government to keep the BJP at bay. "Our support is for the new Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, who belongs to the Mahadalit caste," Prasad said in New Delhi on Thursday. He said his legislators would support the government from outside. However, he stopped short of commenting on whether this alliance will continue in the Bihar Assembly elections too, scheduled for next year. "There has been no talks about that yet. We are supporting this government out of our commitment to keep BJP out. We have not decided about anything else," he said.

Speculations about a "secular alliance" are rife in the state among JD(U), RJD and Congress leaders to keep BJP from consolidating further after its massive win in the Lok Sabha elections. However, leaders of both parties have denied it. The BJP alliance won 31 of 40 seats in Bihar in the recently concluded elections, while the RJD won only four seats. The biggest loser in the elections was the JD(U), which won only two seats, a sharp drop from its 2009 haul of 20. The ruling party's vote share dropped by almost 10 per cent. On the other hand, BJP's vote share was up by more than 20 per cent.

JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar resigned as Bihar chief minister on Saturday after his party's dismal performance in the general elections. Manjhi, who belongs to an extremely backward community, took charge as the chief minister earlier this week. The RJD also does not want to be seen as opposing a member of the most backward caste, thus, risk losing a large vote bank.

The JD(U) has 117 legislators in 243 member-Bihar Assembly. Meanwhile, the RJD has 21 members in the assembly and the Congress has four MLAs. The government has support of two Independent legislators, who are serving as ministers in Manjhi's cabinet. On the other hand, the BJP has 88 members in the house. Five of the seats are lying vacant after the resignation of two BJP and three RJD members.

The Speaker on Sunday revoked a notification recognising the 13 rebel RJD MLAs as a separate faction. This is considered by many as a move to please the RJD leadership ahead of the trust vote.