NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 15: It's rally time in Bihar. As the state approaches the Assembly elections, scheduled before March, political parties have started gearing up to corner more seats.Interestingly, the fight is not so much between the traditional rivals Rashtriya Janata Dal and the National Democratic Alliance as one would have expected, but is more of a tussle among the various constituents of the ruling alliance at the Centre.Anxious to garner more seats for themselves in the forthcoming elections, the NDA partners have started positioning themselves for the big fight. Union Communications Minister Ram Vilas Paswan was first off the mark. He addressed a ``Dalit rally'' over a week back. A galaxy of leaders, including Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Sushil Kumar Modi, were present, but Paswan's Cabinet colleague Nitish Kumar was conspicuous by his absence.Another NDA ally, former MP Anand Mohan's Bihar People's Party followed suit by organising its show of strength on December 10.Paswan was present. So were Modi and Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Maneka Gandhi, but Nitish failed to turn up. It is not known whether he had been invited, even though the posters plastered all over the state capital had his photograph prominently displayed.The Samata Party leader did show up at the ``Chandravanshi Rally'' organised in Patna on Sunday. It was organised by the Chandravanshis, an extremely backward caste, but this time Paswan and Modi were not invited.Not to be left behind, the BJP has now organised 10 yatras which have originated from as many corners in the state. Christened the ``jungle raj hatao yatras,'' they aim to expose RJD misrule as also double standards adopted by the Congress.The yatras are scheduled to culminate in the state capital on December 24 in a rally which is likely to be addressed by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.Political observers view this spate of rallies as part of muscle-flexing going on among the NDA partners to corner a majority ofthe Assembly seats. ``Each party will like to speak from a position of strength once the seat-sharing exercise begins,'' observed a senior JD (U) leader, ``The rallies are part of this exercise.''
