No indication of a thaw in relationship between Lalu and Nitish

Patna: The Lalu camp in Bihar has held a meeting between chief minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Tejaswi Yadav on Tuesday as a positive signal, but there is a no indication from other quarters so far of a thaw in relationship between the two. The deadlock seems to continue.

A close aide of Nitish, Ajay Alok, told a group of media persons here on Wednesday that there was no change in his party's ( JD-U) stand of " zero tolerance" for corruption. "Tejaswi's explanation so far has been far from pleasing to any one in the party including Nitishji".

The JD(U) is , however, a divided house as its parliamentary party leader Sharad Yadav is opposed to any action which could precipitate the crisis. " The coalition should remain in tact at any cost as the people have given a mandate for it", he has told an economic daily in Delhi.

The predicament that the engineer-turned- politician faces is that if he does not take any action now it will go against his image of a "Sushan Babu". His image is his TRP. Any damage to it will be harmful to him in the long run.

He has asked to resign at lest four of his colleagues in the past who were charged with corruption. The last person to suffer on this count was Jeetan Manjhi who was his protege once. He is still nursing a grudge against Nitish.

Any compromise on the issue, therefore, is fraught with danger. The Congress and some other parties which are interested in forming a Mahagathbandhan with him to give a setback to the BJP in 2019 Lok Sabha elections will appear in a bad light if it happens.

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With Sonia and Lalu facing dynastic rule charges and leaders in Mamata Banerjee's party linked with chit fund scandal he was the best choice to lead the great grand alliance. May be it is because of this reason that both Sonia and Rahul have talked to Nitish more than once to reach a settlement with Lalu.

The BJP is enjoying the present goings-on the most because it has nothing to lose. If Nitish seeks party's support, it is well and good if not the party will have a lot to talk about during the coming assembly elections in some states and the next Lok Sabha elections.