RJD doesn't need Congress in Bihar: Lalu

Rashtriya Janata Dal chief and Union Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has said that his party has no need for a Congress alliance in Bihar.

Speaking with media persons in Patna on Saturday, the RJD supreme said that he would not engage the Congress in talks for the forthcoming assembly elections.

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Flaying the tie-up between the Congress and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in the assembly polls in Jharkhand slotted for February, Lalu said the pact was an insult to the Congress's ruling alliance partners in Delhi.

"The United Progressive Alliance government in Delhi is a combination of different political parties and the Jharkhand pact comes as an insult".

He said the Congress decision in Jharkhand was in "bad taste" and the RJD along with Left parties and NCP would protest to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi."

The RJD chief, however, took pains to emphasise that Congress president Sonia Gandhi was not involved in the move and she had been "misled".

"I do not want to embarass her (Gandhi). She would not be a party to it and she must have been misled,"  Prasad said. This is abviously aimed at senior Congress leaders Arjun Singh and M L Fotedar, who were negotiating with party's allies including RJD on the seat-sharing in Bihar and Jharkhand.

In a veiled attack on the two Congress leaders, he said whoever had been instrumental in the Congress-JMM tie-up in Jharkhand had helped communal forces.

"Those who try to weaken UPA, we will teach them a lesson," he remarked.

"If they (Congress) do not need us, we also do not need them. They (Congress) have shown the way... we have no objection," Lalu said, putting the blame entirely on Congress for what he described as a "free for all" type situation in Bihar.

He was caustic about the Congress and JMM, accusing them of treating allies like RJD like "dalits" in spite of the fact that the party had always tried to maintain unity of secular forces in various elections.

Taking strong exception to the manner in which the JMM and Congress leaders had said that they had left 13 seats for RJD and other parties, Prasad that they should be ashamed of talking thus.

"What do they mean by other parties? Do they include NDA also... I can understand two, four or five seats here and there, but not this," the railway minister said.

Prasad said that he had a meeting with CPI general secretary A B Bardhan and CPM leader Sitaram Yechury as also telephonic talks with NCP chief Sharad Pawar whom he had requested to come to Delhi.