With the allies of the Mahagatbandhan — the Opposition alliance in Bihar — beginning a dialogue ahead of the Assembly elections, CPI General Secretary D. Raja has said the alliance should take lessons from the Lok Sabha polls where the Left parties were not accommodated.

Our primary responsibility must be to defeat the BJP and JD(U) combine in Bihar, and to do so all the secular parties need to come together, Mr. Raja said. He pointed out that the CPI and other Left parties had a steady following and vote base in the State. Though the CPI did not win a seat, it got nearly two per cent of the vote share. The CPI(ML), on the other hand, won three seats in the Assembly elections.

“Aligning with the Left always renders an amount of credibility to the alliance. In Bihar, we have a strong following and a cadre base. So all secular parties should be accommodative to each other,” Mr. Raja said.

LS polls

The Lok Sabha polls were a lesson to this point, he said. “During the Lok Sabha elections, I met Lalu Prasad too at Ranchi jail. But we weren’t given a berth and the result was that the Mahagatbandhan colossally failed to mount a challenge to the NDA parties,” Mr. Raja said. During the Lok Sabha elections, the RJD refused to cede even a single seat of Beguasarai, from where former JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar fought and lost.Mr. Raja said it was too early to speak about division of seats but a dialogue must begin in that direction.

For tough fight

RJD leader and Rajya Sabha MP, Manoj K Jha, speaking earlier to The Hindu, had said his party would have to discuss with the Congress before taking any decision on the subject. “And of course, we will aim to give a tough fight to the NDA in each seat. It is right now premature to say. Once the common programme evolves, others who agree to our vision might come on board,” Mr. Jha said.