Amid discordant notes over who would lead the RJD-JD(U)-Congress combine if the alliance comes to power in 2015, the parties asserted on Friday that RJD chief Lalu Prasad and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar would share the dais for campaigning for the bypolls.

The RJD camp was miffed when Bihar Chief Minister Jiten Ram Manjhi recently said that if their alliance came to power, Nitish would be the automatic choice to head the government.

But on Friday, a joint effort by the Congress and two other camps helped iron out differences. “The leadership issue has been put in abeyance. As of now, all we can tell you is that Nitish, Lalu and senior Congress leaders like C P Joshi would jointly campaign for the candidates,” said Bihar JD(U) president Bashishtha Narain Singh on Friday.

The two erstwhile Janata Dal leaders–Lalu and Nitish–will share the dais after 20 years. Nitish broke away from the parent party and formed his own outfit, the Samata Party, in 1994. 

Since then, he had a running feud with Lalu, politically. But after the disastrous 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the two protégés of late Jaya Prakash Narayan stunned all political pundits in June when they decided to bury their hatchet and give a straight fight to the BJP-led alliance in Bihar.