Senior EBC face of JD( U) joins BJP
Bhim Singh, the extremely- backward- caste face of the JD( U), joined the BJP on Friday, giving a jolt to the JD( U)’ s Nitish Kumar and the grand secular alliance. Mr Bhim Singh, a controversial minister, took BJP membership at the BJP state headquarters here in the presence of Union minister and BJP Bihar election in- charge Ananth Kumar, Mr Dharmendra Pradhan and former deputy CM and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi.
Mr Singh was a minister in Mr Nitish Kumar’s and Mr Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Cabinets but later had sided with Mr Manjhi during the tussle for power early this year. Mr Singh claimed he had sided with Mr Manjhi as he couldn’t stand an “insult to a mahadalit leader”.
While sharing the dais with senior BJP leaders, he called Mr Nitish Kumar “arrogant and corrupt”.
Reacting to the issue, senior JD( U) spokesperson Ajay Alok said, “It’s good for his party and the alliance that such elements are leaving one by one.” Another JD( U)
leader said, “The BJP had been keeping such people under wraps and is taking them out one by one. His joining the BJP will not affect the JD( U).”
Bhim Singh had created a controversy in 2013 when, in the wake of the killing of a soldier in Jammu and Kashmir in August of that year, he had said, “People join the Army to get martyred.”
The statement had become an issue and Mr Narendra Modi, who was at the time Gujarat chief minister, and other senior BJP leaders had used the statement to attack Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.
“This shows the BJP’s desperation to grab power in Bihar. He is the same Bhim Singh against whom the party was agitating against for his controversial statement, and today they have taken him into their own party,” a JD( U) leader said. Former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar said, “With Bhim Singh leaving the JD( U), not a single EBC face is now left with the grand secular alliance.”
The BJP is banking completely on the backward caste communities, including the Extremely Backward Castes who constitute 30 per cent — to corner the Nitish- Lalu combine in the ongoing Assembly election in Bihar.