(This story originally appeared in on Jun 09, 2015)

NEW DELHI: Congress nudged a reluctant RJD chief Lalu Prasad to endorse Nitish Kumar as the chief ministerial candidate of a "grand secular" coalition which has been arranged to counter Narendra Modi-led BJP in Bihar elections The RJD boss, who had stubbornly resisted Kumar's projection so far despite professed determination to put up a united fight against BJP, made a surprise announcement on Monday declaring the CM would head the "secular coalition".Lalu's reluctance had led Kumar to virtually declare on Sunday that he was no longer keen on having an alliance with RJD. But the RJD boss changed his stand late Sunday evening and conveyed it to the Bihar CM in Patna just before midnight."I want to assure the secular forces and the people of India that in this battle of Bihar, I am ready to gulp everything. I am ready to consume all types of poison," Lalu told reporters, "poison" being a metaphor for compromise on accepting Kumar as CM candidate.In a decisive intervention, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi hosted the Bihar CM for confabulations just ahead of latter's scheduled meeting on Sunday evening with SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav , who is steering the talks on Bihar alliance.Rahul's direct message on his political preference was complemented by Sonia Gandhi 's cold shoulder to the RJD boss. Lalu, who was the first to back Sonia on the issue of her "foreign origin" and had remained her favourite, did not find encouragement from the COngres supremo in his wish to open parallel negotiations.Though RJD and Nitish-led JD(U) have still to grapple with the tricky task of seat-sharing, reversal of Lalu's gears is a major boost for the effort to check BJP in Bihar. Lalu and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav said there would be no roadblocks in hammering out a seat-sharing arrangement.Lalu's grudging concession was prompted by Congress's 'not-so-hidden' hand in Kumar's favour, thus presenting the RJD chief with the risk of isolation in the "secular" camp at a time when his party is not in the pink of its political health.The development signaled Rahul's growing appetite for a fight with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and demonstrated his newly acquired willingness to collaborate with potential partners. Rahul had so far kept himself aloof from the coalition business because he considered it to be messy.For BJP, this has made the challenge in Bihar difficult. The party is looking at Bihar election as an opportunity to recoup the momentum it lost with the drubbing in Delhi, and to disprove the perception that Modi factor has evaporated.A "joint" secular resistance has the potential to confront BJP with the kind of scenario it faced in Delhi in February when all its opponents rallied around the AAP platform to hand Arvind Kejriwal a landslide.However, the anxiety of its rivals to forge a common front also attests that one year after it swept LS polls, BJP remains the dominant political force. This will encourage the party to style itself as the "favourite" for a contest which will have a bearing on the support BJP may get for the land acquisition bill and other reforms measures.Lalu's coming around marks a victory for Kumar. The JD(U) leader, who suffered a rout when he contested LS elections alone, had worked hard to find allies. To isolate Lalu, he worked on Mulayam's fear that a victory for BJP in Bihar might make it unstoppable in UP in 2017 and encouraged Congress to play a a bigger role in Bihar.The turnaround from Lalu must have surprised Kumar. Not seeing much of a breach in the resistance to his projection, the CM as late as Sunday evening left the meeting at Mulayam's residence with the dire warning that if BJP won in Bihar, even the SP-ruled UP would not be "safe". It was aimed at underlining the urgency of projecting his face for the Bihar polls to pose a challenge to BJP.