JD(U) returns to NDA after 4 yrs, walks out of Grand Alliance

The Janata Dal (United), headed by Nitish Kumar, today 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 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 R C P Singh, Harbansh and Pawan Varma among others, Tyagi said 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 NDA 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 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 today. 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.
Yadav skipped the JD(U) national executive meet and instead, attended the 'Jan Adalat', a parallel programme with suspended party MP Ali Anwar Ansari and others, where he vowed to continue with the Grand Alliance.

Tyagi denied the speculation regarding a split in the JD (U) and said 16 of the 20 state unit presidents of the party, all of its 71 MLAs and 30 MLCs in Bihar and all the office- bearers of its committees appointed earlier by Kumar, "with the consent of Yadav", were present at the national executive meet and thus, were a party to the decision.
"So, how can there be a split in the JD(U)?" he asked.
The party has two MPs in the Lok Sabha and 10 in the Rajya Sabha. While the two Lok Sabha MPs are with Kumar, three of the Rajya Sabha MPs -- Sharad Yadav, Ali Anwar Ansari and M P Veerendra Kumar of Kerala -- are opposed to him.

Tyagi justified the Bihar JD(U)'s proposal to part ways with the Grand Alliance over graft charges against former deputy chief minister Tejaswi Prasad Yadav, who is the son of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad.
"If the decision was not taken on time, the alliance could also have met the same fate as that of the UPA-II under Manmohan Singh, who himself did not indulge in corrupt practices, but could not check the same of its partners," he said.
Tyagi also referred to the "clean political image" of Kumar, who, he said, had resigned from ministerial posts four times in the past to strengthen morality in politics.

Tyagi, whose association with Sharad Yadav spans over five decades, expressed unhappiness over the latter's decision to oppose the party line and be on the side of Lalu Prasad.
On replacing Yadav as the JD(U) parliamentary party leader in the Rajya Sabha with R C P Singh, Tyagi said it had become "necessary" as he (Yadav) had become a "hindrance" to the party.
"He (Yadav) has been treading a different path from the party on important issues like women's reservation, demonetisation, (the Army's) surgical strikes and the recent presidential poll.
"Considering his seniority and relationship with Kumar, no action has been taken against him so far...But, if he crosses the Lakshmanrekha and attends the August 27 rally of Lalu Prasad, action will be taken against him," he added.

Tyagi claimed that Yadav's dignity had "increased manifold" when he stood with Kumar and added, "But if he stands with Lalu Prasad on August 27, he will bury his high values."
JD(U) Rajya Sabha member Harbansh said the national executive meet also adopted a resolution to share the pains of the victims of the Bihar floods.
The meeting also came down heavily on the Congress.
The JD(U), in its political resolution, said the party had played a "positive role" in forming the Grand Alliance by lowering the number of its seats and it even gave 41 seats to the Congress in the 2015 Bihar Assembly polls.

"This (Congress) is the same party, the number of whose members had dwindled to four in the 2010 Bihar Assembly polls," the resolution said.
It added that through the Bihar model of alliance, the JD(U) had tried to facilitate an "alternative thinking" in the country.
"After Bihar, in the Assam election, the JD(U) worked for a shared alternative...But, the Congress perennially remained inactive and indifferent, despite the fact that the AGP and the UDF were active with the JD(U)," it said.
It was observed at the meeting that despite the sincere efforts from 2015 to 2017, it had become clear that the Congress "neither had the capacity nor the interest" in forging an opposition unity.

The meeting also said that the Congress, in the past, had initially supported the governments of Charan Singh, Chandrasekhar, H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral at the Centre but later, withdrew its support and toppled them.
"It (Congress) has never made an honest attempt to forge a national unity based on alternative policies and programmes, nor does it think of it," it observed.