RJD chief Lalu Prasad, in his autobiography Gopalganj To Raisina, My Political Journey, has claimed that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had wanted to come back to Grand Alliance within six months of rejoining NDA and sent his emissary, Prashant Kishor, to meet him. But the RJD chief refused the offer as he no longer “trusted Nitish Kumar”. Senior journalist Nalin Verma, who has also worked on the book, told The Indian Express: “Lalu Prasad has spoken on topics such as BJP, RSS and PM Narendra Modi, his early days of struggle, his experience during the Emergency and his perspective of the JP Movement. On contemporary politics, he has said there is an undeclared emergency in the country now. He says though he was opposed to Emergency clamped by Indira Gandhi, no one called him anti-national.” The RJD chief, who has expressed his views on RSS and BJP, has blamed the NDA for trying to”supress freedom of expression.” Click here for more election news The book also states how Jayaprakash Narayan was not in favour of making Morarji Desai the prime minister after the Janata Party came to power following the Emergency. Lalu Prasad has written in his autobiography that Narayan wanted Jagjivan Ram to be PM instead of Desai. “Lalu says JP thought Jagjivan Ram was a first generation Dalit leader and could become voice of the deprived in Hindi heartland,” said Verma. Elaborating on his meetings with Kishor, Verma said: “Lalu has put it on record that Kishor met him five times to impress upon the fact that Nitish Kumar wanted to return to Grand Alliance (within six months of his return to NDA) with some conditions. But Lalu Prasad said no to it because he did not trust Nitish Kumar any more”. Trashing Lalu’s claims, Kishor tweeted: “The claims made by Laluji as reported are BOGUS. This is nothing but a poor attempt seeking relevance by a leader whose best days are behind him.Yes, we did meet many times before I joined JD(U), but if I were to tell what all was discussed then he would be quite embarrassed.” The book is published by Rupa and its foreword is written by Sonia Gandhi.
