After months of speculation and rumours swirling, it was confirmed on Sunday that Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United and Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal will contest the by-elections to 10 assembly seats in Bihar together. <br /><br />Ending days of speculation, JD-U state president Vashsisht Narain Singh on Sunday made it clear that the two parties have joined hands and will contest the polls together to defeat their main rival -- the Bharatiya Janata Party.<br />"JD-U and RJD will contest the by-polls together in the state. Seat sharing will be decided by the top leaders of both parties. Our aim is to defeat the communal forces in Bihar," said Singh, a day after the Election Commission announced that August 21 would be the date of the by-elections in Bihar.<br />Singh added the polls will be a litmus test for the BJP. "We are confident that JD-U and RJD will sweep the bypolls," he said.<br />The 10 constituencies going to the polls are Narkatiaganj, Rajnagar, Jale, Chhapra, Hajipur, Mohiuddinnagar, Parbatta, Bhagalpur, Banka and Mohania.<br />The alliance assumes much significance in state politics viewing the surge of the BJP in the state. Just last month, RJD had extended support to the JD-U's two candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls. Then Lalu Prasad Yadav had even said that the reason for his extending support was to keep the BJP out. <br />Earlier on Thursday, hinting at an alliance, Nitish Kumar had hit out the BJP, saying it 'gripped with fear' over a probable tie-up between the two parties. "The BJP is gripped with fear hearing possibility of it," he had said. <br /><br />The former Bihar chief minister had recently expressed favour for a grand alliance between the JD-U, RJD, Congress and Left against BJP in next year's state assembly elections.<br /><br /><br /><br />For More information on this news visit: http://www.itvnewsindia.com/<br />For More information on this news, visit: http://www.indianews.ind.in/<br />Connect with us on Social platform at: http://www.facebook.com/IndiaNewsTV<br />Subscribe to our You Tube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/itvnewsindia<br />Connect with us on Social platform at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/India-News/371196196360607
