Nitish chose power over party philosophy: Sharad

NEW DELHI : Rebel JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav hit out at Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday, accusing him of ‘choosing’ the path of power over the party’s philosophy.

In a show of strength, Sharad addressed the national council meeting of the JD(U) where he targeted both the BJP as well as the Bihar chief minister.

Yadav would submit the affidavits signed by the council members to the Election Commission to prove that he has the support of JD(U) legislators and the party’s name and symbol should be given to him.

The poll panel had recently refused to consider his plea on the ground that it lacked supporting documents such as affidavits.

Slamming the Centre over the state of the economy and incidents of cow vigilantism, Sharad said the BJP had promised to support the cause of development in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls, but it preferred to spend its energy on issues such as ‘love jihad’ and cow protection.

“When Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie from the BJP and Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram from the Congress share the same view on the state of the economy, one has to agree that all is not well with the economy. They are the experts,” he said.

The JD(U) leader said that when the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had imposed Emergency, “We were in jail and had the satisfaction of fighting against it. Now, you don’t see it (emergency) but people are suffering, there are no jobs.”

He said when the NDA was running on the principle laid down by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani, Nitish left it.

“I had to agree for the sake of unity of the party. But now, after making efforts to cobble together grand alliance against NDA, he joined the Nda...his is the ‘sarkari’ JD (U )which preferred power. We chose the path of party philosophy,” he said.

Sharad said the grand alliance, will survive in Bihar and spread across the country despite Nitish ditching it.