Lalu agreed to an alliance with Nitish but refused to accept him as the CM candidate. He said, “We will select the leader after election results.” Nitish told Mulayam and the other leaders that the alliance could win only if he was projected as the CM: vagueness would only make people think that Lalu was going to have control and his “jungle raj” would return.
Mulayam and the other leaders spoke to Lalu again, but he resisted the proposal. He said Nitish and he had been political rivals. Their constituencies had crossed swords in many elections. The Yadavs, his primary base, would not easily agree to support Nitish, a Kurmi, as the CM candidate. The Muslims, his other base, would be even more reluctant to do so. If Nitish was announced as the CM candidate before elections, the Yadavs and Muslims might not wholeheartedly support the alliance. In order to get their…