Lalu takes swipe at BJP and JD(U) over seat sharing arrangement

RJD national president Lalu Prasad took a swipe at the BJP and the JD(U) Saturday, a day after they jointly announced a seat-sharing arrangement in the NDA, saying they would first fight together and then against each other.

The former Bihar chief minister made the remarks in a post on his official Twitter handle which is being managed by his office. He is serving sentences in fodder scam cases but is currently ailing and admitted to a hospital.

"They will fight together and then fight each other. They will again fight together and again fight each other," he said taking a dig at the checkered history of the BJP-JD(U) tie-up.

The 17-year-long alliance of the two parties was snapped abruptly in 2013 but they came together again four years later.

Prasad also used epithets like paltimaar (turncoat) and "master in fakery" (swagger) apparently for Kumar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi respectively, neither of whom was mentioned by name.

Kumar was accused of being a turncoat by the RJD after he walked out of the grand alliance less than three years after its formation, following corruption cases against Prasad's younger son and the then deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav, and returned to the NDA last year.

Modi was accused of making tall claims and false promises by opposition parties.

On Friday, at a joint press meet in the national capital Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar and BJP chief Amit Shah had said the seat-sharing formula for the NDA in the state would be announced in three to four days.

The announcement put to rest speculations that demands by Kumar for a respectable share may throw a spanner in the way of a pre-poll tie-up.

Seeking to put up a brave front in the face of the formidable challenge that the BJP-JD(U) combine is likely to pose, the RJD supremo said, "Earlier the people defeated them separately. Now they will be beaten together and signed off with an evocative Jai Bihar."