Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday called on Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi at the latter's residence in New Delhi as the talks on alliance for Bihar Assembly elections gained momentum.
The JD(U) leader had reached Delhi on Saturday. Meanwhile, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, who too arrived in Delhi on Sunday, said he will be meeting various leaders to discuss the alliance issue.
JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav, who had on Thursday asserted that his party will fight the Bihar Assembly elections along with RJD and the Congress, was also in Delhi, holding discussions with the leaders of other parties having stake in Bihar politics.
Amid reports of growing differences, RJD and JD(U) top brass are likely to hold talks in the national capital. Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav is expected to anchor the talks to resolve the Bihar alliance issue. The RJD chief was reportedly not keen on projecting JD(U) leader Kumar as Bihar's chief ministerial candidate of the alliance.
Mulayam was earlier selected by the six splinter groups of the Janata Parivar ― JD(U), RJD, SP, JD(S), INLD and Samajwadi Janata Party ― to work out their grand merger plan to take on a resurgent BJP, which has made deep inroads into their vote banks in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and some other states, including Karnataka and Haryana.
The election to 243-seat Bihar Assembly is due later this year.
