Bihar trio’s race for top job

Manoj Chaurasia
PATNA, Feb 3: With the Election Commission still to announce specific dates for the Lok Sabha polls it is too early to predict who emerge as winners, yet the three major political players of Bihar are already locked in a strange contest these days ~ they all want to head the next government at the Centre.
While the RJD chief Mr Lalu Prasad has said it quite frequently that he aspires to be the Prime Minister, but with the rider that “he is not in a hurry”, two of his erstwhile "friends", LJP chief Mr Ram Vilas Paswan and Bihar chief minister Mr Nitish Kumar (JD-U) have added a further twist to the political scene by announcing, through the media, that they too are in the race for the country's top job.
Both Mr Prasad and Mr Paswan are ministers in the ruling Congress-led UPA government at the Centre, while Mr Kumar was a former Union minister before taking up his job as the chief minister of the state.
Mr Paswan, who claims to have control over a sizeable section of dalit votes, made his soaring Prime Ministerial ambition clear recently in an interview to a local daily. “My good friend Lalu Prasadji has run the full course. It's time I lead the UPA in Bihar, and if given the chance, the country,” said Mr Paswan in his interview, adding: “People in Bihar and other parts of the country have faith in me. In fact, people of Hajipur (his home constituency) have even coined a slogan to this effect, but in an era of coalition it’s all in the numbers”.
Coming at a time when the RJD chief is utilising all his powers to placate the recalcitrant LJP chief and ensure the latter's party goes to the next polls in alliance with the RJD, Mr Prasad was only too quick to fan up Mr Paswan's ambition. Aab dalit bhai ki hi bari hai (It's time a dalit should head the country now)”, Mr Prasad said while replying to a reporters’ query yesterday. He strongly backed Mr Paswan's reported stand that the country's top post must now go to a dalit. He even clarified he had no objection if the LJP chief headed the UPA in Bihar.
What apparently has compelled the RJD chief to remain cool and accept Mr Paswan's demands, observers said, is his lurking fear that a divided UPA might further harm the poll prospects of his party in the ensuing LS polls as was seen during the last two Assembly elections Bihar faced twice in 2005 which eventually saw the RJD stripped of power. Mr Prasad is so upset with his party's defeat in the Assembly polls, party insiders said, that he is in no mood to antagonise the LJP chief further. The cracks in their friendship developed after Mr Prasad walked away with the railway ministry, which Mr Paswan was eyeing during the distributions of portfolios after last LS poll results.
Yet another leader who has, according to reports, joined the race is the Bihar chief minister, Mr Kumar. Reports said the Prime Ministerial ambition suddenly developed in him soon after an English daily in its editorial defended the India Inc endorsement of Mr Narendra Modi as PM but rated Mr Kumar higher than the Gujarat chief minister in many respects.
Such was the interest attached to this story that Mr Kumar, instantly sought a copy of this paper from his Press official who himself, reports said, did not have any idea about this news story and hence began making calls to the journalists to find out about any such story published in any daily. Although Mr Kumar has never expressed this desire in public and has been saying Mr LK Advani will be the next PM, several people participating in his Vikas Yatra called for him to be the next PM from the dais as the CM listened calmly.

Source : The Statesman