Lalu and Nitish will split up before polls in Bihar: Katheria

Says the two are old adversaries, forced into an unnatural alliance as both are afraid of the BJP's rising popularity in the state

Dismissing surveys which showed that the Nitish-Lalu combine had an edge in poll-bound Bihar, senior BJP leader and Union Minister Ram Shankar Katheria here today claimed that the two would "split up" once the process of giving tickets started and the same opinion polls would then predict a majority for BJP.

"There is no need to give much importance to any opinion poll on Bihar right now. They are making predictions for the Nitish-Lalu combine which is not going to last. The two are old adversaries, forced into an unnatural alliance as both are afraid of the BJP's rising popularity in the state. Moreover, they are going to split up soon," Katheria told reporters.

"The people of Bihar are already wary of the alliance which brings into prominence Lalu who has been synonymous with the lawlessness of the 1990s. Moreover, hopes of the success of this alliance are bound to be dashed as once the process of giving tickets to candidates commences, the two archrivals will split up and their artificial bonhomie would be in tatters," he said.

"So, we should just wait for a few months and the same agencies which are now showing different trends would then be predicting a thumping majority for our party", he said.

Katheria, who is Minister of State for HRD in the Narendra Modi government, dismissed as "natak" (drama) the demonstration Lalu is scheduled to hold in Patna to press the demand for making public the findings of caste-based census.

"When the report is complete, addressing all objections raised from different sections of the society while the census was on, its findings will be made public. And that would be for the entire country. Disclosing the census findings is not going to be an exercise exclusively for poll-bound Bihar as desired by Lalu," the minister remarked.

Katheria, who is a two-term MP from Agra, attacked the Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh saying "the state has the worst law and order situation in the country" and claimed "while Madhya Pradesh may be in news for Vyapam, UP has scores of such scams waiting to be unearthed".