RJD might move out of Bihar alliance, says Paswan

New Delhi: Attempts at Opposition unity in the run-up to the presidential polls will soon come a cropper, union minister and Lok Jana Shakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan said on Thursday.

Mr Paswan, who has been on the same side with the many parties trying to forge an anti-BJP front now, equated the current Opposition with an orange, a fruit that has the same colour on the outside, but has many pieces on the inside.

According to Mr Paswan, the efforts were bound to fail, as beyond the presidential polls, the Congress was not open to allow any person other than their vice president Rahul Gandhi as the leader of any anti-BJP platform being explored.

“The Congress party will never accept any PM other than Rahul Gandhi and he has failed as a leader,” the Union food and consumer affairs minister said.

“All efforts at any such alliance have failed as was evident before the Uttar Pradesh elections and I can president that the grand alliance in Bihar will also collapse very soon,” he said.

The Income-Tax raids on the benami properties of RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and family will “certainly, definitely and very soon” have an effect on the Bihar grand alliance. “I had said earlier that the government will last only two and a half years and just wait and see how I will be proved right,” he said.

The Union minister claimed that there was a state of cold war between Mr Prasad and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. “Mr Kumar is scared that the RJD will break away his party MLAs and form its own government, and that is the reason he wants to keep his options with the BJP open,” he said.

On the coming presidential polls in July, and whether the government should make any efforts to talk to the Opposition for a common consensus candidate, Mr Paswan said, “It was a political decision.”

“Whatever decision is taken, we are with the government. Even the Congress had not consulted anybody before fielding Pratibha Patil,” he said.