Flutter in RJD after Lalu aide meets Raghubar

Ranchi: The grand alliance in Jharkhand sealed its seat-sharing deal on Sunday after weeks of deliberations but not before causing heartburn among two prospective alliance partners — RJD and Left — who turned hostile even as the announcement was underway at the residence of JMM patriarch Shibu Soren .

However, the biggest turn of events which created flutters late night with the RJD — the party led by Lalu Prasad , now serving jail term and undergoing treatment in Ranchi’s Rims — is a meeting of the party’s state president Annapurna Devi along with two other prominent leaders — Janardhan Paswan and Manoj Bhuiyan — with chief minister Raghubar Das , giving credence to the speculation of the trio joining BJP .

If that happens, it will come as a huge blow to Lalu as Annapurna is considered to be one of his most trusted aides.

Sources both in the state BJP and CM house confirmed Annapurna and company’s meeting with Das at his residence in Kanke road. “Annapurna, Janardhan and Manoj came at around 7pm to meet CM. BJP’s national general secretary Bhupendra Yadav too was present. All of them had a closed door meeting for about half an hour,” said a well-placed source at CM house.

“However, the deal behind their visit is yet to be cemented but expected shortly. Annapurna might be fielded from Chatra or Koderma,” he said preferring anonymity.

Annapurna Devi’s phone remained switched off throughout the day, while Janardhan didn’t receive calls made to him. Manoj however bluntly denied meeting CM. “No, I didn’t meet anyone,” he said.

The state RJD camp, which had been denying speculations about this since last couple of days, however, continued to feign ignorance.

Party’s general secretary Kailash Yadav, and two other senior leaders maintained that their president (Annapurna Devi) was unwell and on bed rest.

Earlier in the evening, Yadav along with principal general secretary of state RJD Sanjay Yadav and president of state parliamentary board , Ram Chandra Singh convening an emergent press conference on mahagatbandhan announced of fielding candidates for Chatra and Palamu seats but maintained that they are mulling to fight on more seats.

Notably, Congress led grand alliance in Jharkhand settled for 7:4:2:1 seat formula between Congress, JMM, JVM and RJD but the latter found the deal unacceptable.

“Our demand of Chatra and Palamu is beyond bargain. Initially, we wanted Koderma too, but in the interest of alliance, we agreed to leave that. But we are only getting one seat (Palamu) in the existing mahagatbandhan which isn’t acceptable for us,” remarked Sanjay Yadav.

“So, we are going ahead with our plan of fighting Chatra and Palamu,” announced Kailash. “We have also started the exercise to field candidates on more seats. A concrete announcement in this regard will formally be made very soon,” he added.