Zee Media Bureau/Ritesh K Srivastava
Patna: After throwing enough indications of their coming together in past, the three major political parties in Bihar - Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress – on Wednesday sealed an alliance to contest the upcoming Assembly by-elections in the state.
A formal announcement in this regard was made by top leader of the three parties in a press conference held here at 2.30 pm.
Addressing the media, senior JD(U) leader Vashistha Narayan Singh said, “I am very happy to announce that three major parties – JD-U, RJD, Congress – have decided to contest the upcoming by-polls together. It has also been decided that the three parties will jointly campaign during the by-elections.”
The alliance aims at defeating and exposing the real face of BJP, which is ruling at the Centre, Singh added.
As per the seat sharing agreement between the three parties, the JD(U) and Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD will contest on four seats each while Congress will fight on 2 seats in the August 21 by-polls.
JD-U chief Sharad Yadav had on Sunday indicated that his party will maintain its alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, not just for the Assembly by-polls to be held next month, but will continue in future as well.
"We already had a tie-up in the Rajya Sabha by-polls . This is the next step, we had already declared it. We will unite together and this will continue and will have solidarity amongst ourselves," Yadav told reporters.
"We will prepare ourselves and rewrite a new history by uniting the votes which got divided. Our effort now is to unite the voices of the people," the JD-U chief added.
By-elections on 10 Bihar seats, necessitated by the election of some MLAs to the Lok Sabha and resignation of others, is being viewed as the "semi-final" before the crucial Assembly poll, due next year.
The so-called non-secular show of Narendra Modi during the Lok Sabha polls had shattered the stronghold of caste-based politics in the Hindi heartland, necessitating the need for two arch-rivals – Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad – to join hands to defeat BJP.
The combined vote share of RJD, JD(U) and Congress in 2014 General Elections stacked up to 44.3 percent against the NDA vote share of 38.8 percent. In the 2010 Assembly Elections, JD(U), RJD and Congress had together polled 49.83 percent of the total votes, against 23.21 percent of BJP and LJP, according to reports.
Meanwhile, the BJP has described coming together of JD(U), RJD and Congress as an "unholy alliance" and said people would not accept them.
"People of Bihar have already rejected these parties in Lok Sabha election and hence there coming together against BJP will yield no result," senior BJP leader and leader of Opposition in Assembly Nand Kishore Yadav said.
