Wednesday, June 15 2005 10:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Patna: An electoral understanding among the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) partners in Bihar is in disarray with Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) president Ramvilas Paswan once again ruling out rapproachement with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) saying a party, which had mourned the demise of LJP, cannot be termed a friend.

"Where was RJD supremo and Railway Minister Laloo Prasad when my MLAs were being poached by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to cobble together majority. Instead of playing a positive role, he tried to further aggravate the situation and even congratulated Nagmani former Union Minister, after he parted company with us to stir up a revolt," Paswan told sources before leaving for New Delhi.

"We will never forget that Laloo Prasad and his colleagues started mourning what they termed as death of the LJP when some of my party MLAs were abducted and kept in Jharkhand," he said and asked do you think that mourners of our death will later turn out to be a friend?

Obviously not, he said adding he would take up the issue of alliance with the Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

Nagmani had resigned from the LJP a few days before the party MLAs had travelled to Jharkhand, sparking off a major controversy leading to dissolution of the State Assembly on the charges of what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Governor Buta Singh had dubbed as "the worst-kind of horse trading taking place in Bihar".

While commenting on desertion of the LJP MLAs, Laloo had said, "What all we can do at present is that we can mourn the death of LJP, which became defunct after its MLAs left Paswan alone".

Paswan said he would also take up with Sonia Gandhi the issue of the failure of UPA to show unity in Jharkhand where RJD had played a "mischief" by fielding its leader Mukti Nath Upadhyay against Jharkhand Mukthi Morcha (JMM) nominee and son of Sibu Soren, Durga Soren leading to defeat of both and Janata Dal United (JDU) leader Digvijay Singh romping to victory in the recent Rajya Sabha poll.

"All these things should be discussed thoroughly in the UPA meeting," Paswan, also Union Minister for Steel, Chemicals and Fertilisers, said.

He said he would soon meet Sonia Gandhi and draw her attention to several such problems relating to Bihar.

Paswan reiterated that his party was not averse to have an electoral understanding with the Congress, Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India Marxist (CPM) and Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML-liberation) and his recent meetings with the CPI and CPM leaders, including Prakash Karat, Harkishan Singh Surjeet and A B Bardhan was aimed at exploring the possibility of a poll tie-up.

Asked whether a non-NDA Government could be possible without support of the RJD in Bihar, he said, "There will be a strong Government minus Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and minus RJD".

"Wait with bated breath till the outcome of the coming Assembly polls. It will be astonishing," he said.