Saturday, April 2 2005 11:26 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Patna: Janata Dal United (JDU) Chief Ministerial candidate Nitish Kumar today (April 2, 2005) sent a copy of a Common Minimum Programme (CMP) prepared by the party and personal letters to six major anti-Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) parties, including the Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) and 17 Independents seeking their support for formation of a non-RJD Government in Bihar.

A copy of the CMP and personal letter has been sent to the LJP, Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist-Liberation (CPI-ML), Communist Party of India (CPI), Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) besides 17 Independents.

They were urged to thoroughly peruse the agenda listed in the CMP for making a crime-free and progressive Bihar and pave the way for fruitful talks for formation of an anti-RJD Government in the State, Kumar said in Patna.

The letter to the LJP has been addressed to party president and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who is in the town for his party's three-day meet starting in Patna today.

The exercise of Government formation in Bihar is gaining momentum with Nitish Kumar and Ramvilas Paswan holding parleys with State Samajwadi Party chief Dadan Singh alias Dadan Pahelwan.

Soon after Paswan's arrival at Pahelwan's circular road home, Kumar also reached there and the three leaders held a close-door meeting to discuss the Government formation strategy.

Coming out of the closet, Pahelawan told waiting reporters that Paswan and Nitish discussed with him the matter relating to Government formation.

He said SP with four MLAs would extend support to a non-RJD and non-BJP Government in Bihar.

Besides 92 MLAs of National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the LJP has 29, CPI-ML has 7, CPI (3), Samajwadi Party (4), Bahujan Samaj Party (2) and NCP (3) in the 243-member Bihar Assembly.

Kumar in his letter said that the results of the State Assembly had thrown a hung house and due to failure of any party or combination to form a popular Government, President's Rule was imposed in the State on March 7.

He further said that President's Rule was no remedy for problems gripping the state and in this condition there were only two options either to form an anti-RJD coalition Government or go for fresh polls.

There was no guarantee that a fresh poll would again not throw a hung Assembly. ''In a bid to form an anti-RJD coalition Government, my party has prepared a 16-point CMP including the salient features of the election manifestoes of parties, which went to polls vowing to bring an end to the 15-year-old RJD rule,'' he said.

The JDU leader said all these non-RJD parties had been inclined to end backwardness of the State and improve l said that ''my party has authorised me to hold talks with all the anti-RJD parties to form a Government to make Bihar a progressive, secular and caste-tension free State''.