By-poll results not indicator of things to come: Ram Vilas Paswan

Downplaying last month's bypoll results in Bihar in which the BJP-led coalition fared poorly winning only four out of 10 seats, Union Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Sunday said it would be wrong to assume that the grand alliance of JD(U), RJD and Congress would come to power in the Assembly polls next year.

"It will be wrong to assume on the basis of the bypoll results in Bihar that the grand alliance will grab power at next year's Assembly polls," Paswan said.

Stating that bypoll results were not always an indicator of things to come, the LJP chief said the erstwhile NDA constituting JD(U) and BJP had won only five out of 18 Assembly seats in 2009 bypoll, but swept the Assembly polls a year later.

Paswan was talking to reporters at the state LJP office where he paid tribute to former Bihar Chief Minister Bhola Paswan Shastri on his 100th birth anniversary.

Paswan said Lalu Prasad had started dreaming of becoming chief minister again after his party's victory in six seats in 2009 Assembly bypolls but his party RJD failed to win even 10 per cent of total Assembly seats (243) a year later during the Assembly polls, the LJP supremo said.

The Union Minister ridiculed senior JD(U) leader and former Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for his sustained efforts to cobble up an alternative to the NDA at the national level saying such a possibility was impossible to work out given the disunity among parties opposed to the BJP-led coalition.

Giving an example, he said SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and his BSP counterpart Mayawati would never join forces given their diametrically opposed social and political base in Uttar Pradesh.

The 'grand alliance' can work only in Bihar as Kumar and Lalu Prasad are able to come together at one platform with Congress, said Paswan who had dumped the RJD chief at the last minute to join the NDA ahead of the general elections.

Paswan, who had come under attack from RJD for being a 'weather cock' for joining the NDA for greener pasture, had a dig at the new-found bonhomie between Kumar and Prasad saying how come the two explain their friendship after abusing each other for over eight years.

On the war of words among top Bihar BJP leaders over leadership issue for next year's Assembly polls, the LJP supremo said the debate over chief ministerial candidate was irrelevant at this stage as elections were far away.