JD-U back in NDA after four years
patna — The Janata Dal (United), headed by Nitish Kumar, on Saturday decided to get back to the NDA-fold, four years after it severed ties with it and walk out of the Grand Alliance, comprising the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress, in Bihar.
“The national executive meeting of the JD(U), chaired by party chief Nitish Kumar, approved a resolution to become part of the NDA,” its principal general secretary K C Tyagi said.
Flanked by senior JD(U) leaders RC P Singh, Harbansh and Pawan Varma among others, Tyagi said Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah, during a recent meeting with Kumar, had urged him to bring the party back into the NDA-fold.
“The national executive committee approved it and now, we have become part of the NDA,” he said.
The national executive also put its seal of approval on the party’s Bihar unit’s decision to walk out of the Grand Alliance and join hands with the BJP to form the government in that state.
The decision to return to the National Democratic Alliance came a little after four years when Kumar had driven the JD(U) to leave the alliance on June 16, 2013 after Narendra Modi was chosen as its prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 general election.
The then JD(U)-BJP coalition government in Bihar had seized
We will wait till August 27 to see if Sharad Yadavji crosses the lakshmanrekha and stands with Lalu Prasad. K C Tyagi, NDA general secretary
to exist after this development.
Kumar once again decided to join hands with the BJP to form a government in Bihar, which was sworn in on July 27.
To justify it, Kumar had said the JD(U) was registered with the Election Commission (EC) as a regional party of Bihar and hence, the decision of the party’s state unit was supreme.
Two factions of the party, headed by Kumar and Sharad Yadav respectively, held parallel meetings in Patna on Saturday. The group under Kumar categorically denied that there was a split in the party and claimed that an “overwhelming majority” of the party members was with them.
The Kumar faction, however, avoided cracking the whip against Yadav, who is charting a different path, till August 27 to see if he takes part in an RJD rally at Patna on that day. “We will wait till August 27 to see if Sharad Yadavji crosses the lakshmanrekha and stands with Lalu Prasad, who is considered the badshah (king) of corruption in the country,” Tyagi said. — PTI