Patna,(BiharTimes): Even as the RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav cancelled the meeting of senior party leaders in New Delhi on November 6 on the health ground some of his party leaders and that of the alliance partner JD(U) are locked in a muscle flexing exercise.

Earlier the meeting was called at Lalu’s New Delhi residence to formulate the basis of the grand alliance in Bihar. Now the RJD chief, according to party sources, is not fit to go to Jharkhand, where he was supposed to jointly campaign with JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar.

Lalu and Nitish may have developed some different equation, but many other RJD leaders are speaking in much harder tone.

For example former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said on Tuesday that under the grand alliance, the RJD would contest from 123 seats, JD(U) 90 and Congress 30.

He has repeatedly been stating that the alliance would have to be made on the basis of the latest Lok Sabha election results and not on 2010 Assembly poll. By that yardstick RJD would be the biggest of the three parties. It got about 21 per cent votes, while its alliance partner the Congress around nine per cent. The Janata Dal (United) got 15.8 per cent votes.

Raghuvansh’s argument is that the 2010 Assembly election will not help judge the latest mood of the voters. The JD(U) then got so much seats only because it contested in alliance with the BJP. Its own strength got exposed in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Some senior JD(U) leaders are upset over the big brotherly attitude of Raghuvansh. Not only that the latter publicly denounced the termination of the membership of four JD(U) MLAs by the Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary and called it a murder of democracy.

Whether he is speaking on the behalf of Lalu or on his own, political observers are of the view that the seat-sharing talks are not going to be a smooth affair. All the three parties would be making hard bargain.

True both Lalu and Nitish were earlier supposed to jointly campaign in Jharkhand the scenario in Bihar would be different. Unlike in Jharkhand, where RJD and JD(U) are minor players, here both the parties would seek their own pound of flesh.

JD(U) MLC Sanjay Singh claims that the JD(U) is the bigger party. “How can the RJD get more seats? If its leaders have wishes to fight more seats than they deserve, they should keep it to themselves,” he said.

However, the state JD(U) chief Bashistha Narayan Singh was quoted as saying that all talks of seat-sharing now is pre-mature.

However, moderate voices in both the parties attribute such statements to the pre-poll muscle flexing exercise and said that both the parties may agree to more reasonable solution of around 100 seats each and leaving around 30-40 for the Congress. Both Nitish and Lalu know their limitations and compulsions.

But the problem with JD(U) is that it is at present the ruling party and can, in no condition, contest less than 117 seats, which it has now.

Some leaders say that the two parties may not even project any chief ministerial candidate and go to election with Jitan Ram Manjhi as the chief minister. “The first goal is to get rid of Narendra Modi-led BJP and the other issues would be finalized later on.” This is how an RJD leader commented.