Patna : RJD authorised its chief Lalu Prasad to select party candidates for the Bihar Assembly elections starting next month, and hold talks with alliance partners on all emerging issues. A meeting of state RJD parliamentary board under former Chief Minister Rabri Devi held on Tuesday decided to give the authority to Prasad, state party President Ramchandra Purbe said.
Purbe, who was accompanied by Prasad’s son Tejaswi Yadav and RJDLP leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui, said the party’s central parliamentary board would meet on September 17 and deliberate on selection of candidates for the crucial polls.
The decision to leave the decision on selection of candidates to Prasad came in the midst of media reports of RJD claiming many sitting seats of ruling JD(U), with which it is in grand secular alliance.
Media reports said Lalu Prasad’s two sons Tej Pratap and Tejaswi are expected to enter the fray from Mahua and Raghopur, which are in Vaishali district and have sitting JD(U) MLAs. Purbe denied any hiatus among the partners of the grand secular alliance over seat selection and asserted there was ‘proper coordination’ among them.
Rabri Devi said that Nitish Kumar has already been chosen as a chief ministerial candidate of the secular alliance. “But, Bihar elections is strictly between NDA and the grand secular alliance and no other party or individual would get any support from anywhere,” Siddiqui said.
