The Rashtriya Janata Dal on Thursday seemed intent on stealing a march over its allies as well as adversaries, with party president Lalu Prasad giving away tickets to candidates for a number of Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. Although the party has, so far, refrained from making a formal announcement, aspirants were seen emerging from 10, Circular Road, the government bungalow allotted to the RJD supremo's wife Rabri Devi, with tell-tale signs of garlands and the party symbol.

Those who got the party tickets include Abhay Kushwaha, who quit Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) a day ago, and is set to be the RJD candidate from Aurangabad, which goes to polls in the first phase.

“I quit the JD(U) because I felt workers were not getting due respect in that party. The RJD and the Mahagathbandhan is going to turn the tables on the NDA in Bihar”, declaimed Kushwaha, who is also a former MLA.

Incidentally, Aurangabad has been a seat the Congress, an RJD ally, sees as one of the few parliamentary constituencies in Bihar where it has not become a spent force. With Rahul Gandhi having covered Aurangabad district during the 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra', party cadre was hopeful that the Congress will get the eponymous Lok Sabha seat.

However, RJD national vice president Shivanand Tiwary told PTI “It is a deft move the party has made in Aurangabad. We need to look at the figures of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when the seat had gone to our then ally Hindustani Awam Morcha which had fielded a Kushwaha candidate in what is seen as a Rajput bastion”.

He added “The HAM candidate Upendra Prasad put up a good fight, polling just about 70,000 votes less than the BJP winner. With the RJD always assured of its own Muslim-Yadav support base, we can rest assured of a good fight and even hope for a win in the seat, which has been with the NDA since 2009”.

He also admitted “the Congress must have set its eyes on the seat, having won it so many times. But the party needs to realise that increase in personal popularity of Rahul Gandhi has not made the party a more potent force in Bihar”.

Yet another seat that the Congress may have liked to contest, until Prasad claimed it for his party, is Nawada where the ticket has gone to Shravan Kushwaha, a grassroots level worker who has been a village mukhiya, besides having fought assembly and legislative council polls without success.