The Ayodhya issue could influence the electoral battle in Bihar in October if the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court will pronounce its judgment on the 60-year-old Ayodhya title suits on September 24.
Political players, cutting across parties, foresee that the issue could set the tone of the Assembly election campaign.
The Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD and the BJP will try to get mileage of the issue on the basis of the high court’s judgment if delivered in this month by polarising their political constituency while chief minister Nitish Kumar will prefer to take a mandate on the performance on his government.
The Congress, which has decided to fight all the seats on its own, will put the Janata Dal(U), RJD and the BJP in the dock for keeping the state backward in the last two decades.
The last Assembly election saw Lalu versus the rest battle. And this time, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav will be projected as a chief ministerial candidate of the RJD-LJP combine.
And his projection will bring the upper castes closer to the JD(U)-BJP combine.
The Congress has started predicting a hung Assembly saying that Mr Yadav’s decision to leave a large number of seats to the LJP, led by Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, is a candid admission that his RJD has become week and relying on the Yadav-Rajput vote-bank.
On the other hand, Mr Nitish Kumar is trying to puncture the Congress’ development plank by hinting that Mr Yadav and the Congress will come together in the post poll situation.
Meanwhile, the Congress will finalise its candidates for the Bihar Assembly polls within next two weeks with greater representation of youth in line with Rahul Gandhi’s plans to infuse fresh blood in the organisation.
An indication to this effect was given by Bihar PCC chief Mehboob Ali Kaiser who met Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Mr Kaiser said the party will try to announce names of candidates for all the seats in one go, which could happen on September 20 or 21, a few days after the screening committee meets here on September 15 or 16.
The six-phased Assembly elections will begin on October 20.
The term of the 243-member Assembly will end on November 27.