Political parties in Bihar are preparing for mid-term assembly elections as the Nitish Kumar government will fall in six months to a year because of a “cold war” between the CM and ally Lalu Prasad, food, consumer affairs and public distribution minister Ram Vilas Paswan said.The Lok Janshakti Party leader from Bihar ruled out any possibility of opposition parties uniting against the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance, saying there was bitterness between Congress and Arvind Kejriwal Mamata Banerjee and the Left, and Congress and Mulayam Singh Yadav On the Supreme Court’s order on Monday asking Prasad to stand separate trials in the fodder scam cases, Paswan said it will have far-reaching consequences as CBI can now argue against the former Bihar chief minister’s bail.In an interview to Madhvi Sally and Himangshu Watts, Paswan also spoke about making the food economy cashless and steps to protect consumers, which he said had been neglected by the previous government. Edited excerpts:There’s a cold war between Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar. Nitish is blamed for leaking damaging information about Lalu … I don’t think that government will last more than six months or a year. Everybody is preparing for mid-term polls in Bihar.Yes, preparations are on.The main thing is, what is the unity for? To get power. For power, you need to project a PM candidate. That’s not going to happen. Even if there’s agreement on a name, there’s no vacancy until 2024.There’s no Opposition. Narendra Modi is there at least until 2024. Where is the Opposition? I tell them, don’t waste your time, work for the people. You are not doing that. Lalu Yadav feels that ‘if we didn’t have an alliance with Congress we would have come to power on our own’.Nitish Kumar is frustrated with Lalu, Mulayam Singh is frustrated with Congress. Congress is against Kejriwal, Kejriwal is against Congress, Mamata is against the Left, the Left is against Mamata. So where is the Opposition? What are they thinking? They are trying, but the Opposition is wiped out.But there was a grand alliance in Bihar. People say that can happen nationally...They managed an alliance in Uttar Pradesh. What happened? They thought they will go with Congress, there would be Yadav vote here, Muslim vote there. What happened? In Bihar, people are regretting (that they voted against NDA).What will she do? You can make somebody the boatman, but what can that person do if the boat has a hole?Whether it is Rahul Gandhi , Kejriwal or Lalu, a man’s biggest enemy is ahankaar (arrogance). The person who develops an ego is destroyed. In Gandhi’s case, people were waiting three months for a meeting.Leadership doesn’t develop just like that. Take the case of Narendra Modi. People have faith he is their leader, whatever he does will be for them. So much was said about demonetisation (Former PM) Manmohan Singh said GDP will be hit, but it made no difference. People thought we are poor, but at least these big people are feeling the pain. They are not so hassled with their poverty as wealth of other people. People have faith in Modi.Big impact. There is a cold war between Lalu and Nitish. Whatever is coming out against Lalu — land deals, purchase of malls, etc — it’s being said that Nitish Kumar is supplying the information.Nitish is also being blamed for Lalu’s (alleged) conversations with a criminal in jail. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (senior leader of Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal party) keeps speaking (against Nitish).Nitish wants Lalu to be weak. Nitish thinks that if Lalu is strong, he might take away people from Nitish’s party because he has 80 MLAs and Congress has 27. That makes 107.For majority, you need 122. So at times he looks towards NDA also. There is a jolt from the Supreme Court. You are on bail, you are convicted and you are talking to criminals in jail. They have said each case will be pursued separately. CBI can argue against Lalu’s bail.Yes, he keeps looking.He keeps giving a signal to Lalu that ‘I have a channel that side also (hamara udhar bhi raasta khula hua hai). If necessary, I’ll go there.’In the Lok Sabha polls, they were wiped out. When floodwater rises, all creatures climb a tree. Once the water recedes, they go here and there. In Bihar, Nitish doesn’t have his own vote bank, Lalu faces corruption charges, Congress is nothing. Nitish, Lalu, Congress are getting smeared, (but) they are not saying anything.People understand.When we took over in May 2014, eleven states had implemented the National Food Security Act, but six months ago, all states implemented it. Under NFSA, wheat at Rs 2 a kg and rice at Rs 3 a kg is being given to 71 crore beneficiaries. We have not raised the prices. We are computerising the entire public distribution system (PDS) to prevent leakages. CCTV cameras have been installed in godowns to check leakages and wastage of foodgrain. Foodgrain losses of Food Corporation of India (FCI) have been brought down to 0.04 per cent and we have done 100 per cent digitisation.With the linkage of Aadhaar card with ration card — till now 2.33 crore ration cards — over 9 crore beneficiaries have been found to be duplicate or bogus. So, 9 crore genuine beneficiaries have been added.We have gone 99.99 per cent cashless, whether it is procurement or transportation. We are also going cashless at points of sale and have already done it in 50,048 shops. Direct transfer of cash subsidy is one of the options discussed at various forums for checking diversion of foodgrain.We are constructing modern silos with 100 lakh tonnes capacity. Tenders for over 37.5 lakh tonnes have been awarded and silos with 10.5 lakh tonnes capacity have been constructed.We are maintaining a buffer of 20 lakh tonnes of pulses which has ensured that prices, which were touching Rs 200 a kg, are now stable.Now prices have fallen and we are buying it at the minimum support price. Sugarcane farmers have also benefited from sustained government efforts to facilitate payment of arrears.When we came in, sugarcane arrears were close to Rs 33,000 crore. Now, 99.9% have been paid and only 3-4 mills in Uttar Pradesh have to pay up to farmers.To protect consumers, the government is making provisions in the new Consumer Protection Bill which will have (provisions for) a consumer protection authority, strict action against misleading advertisements and (will) strengthen the consumer court infrastructure.We have increased the national consumer helpline to 60 lines from 14. Also, in five places, zonal helplines have been started apart from providing web chat and having a consumer app. Consumers had been neglected under the United Progressive Alliance government.