Pushed into a deep political and existential crisis following Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s decision to ally with the BJP-led NDA, the Kerala unit of the Janata Dal-United may soon merge with the parent party, Janata Dal (S). The JD-U leadership has already made it clear that a decision in this regard will be taken at the next meeting of the party’s State council.

K Krishnankutty, State president of the JD-S, a constituent of the CPI(M)-led ruling lDF, had the other day extended an almost direct invitation to the JD(U), presently a minor partner of the Congress-led Opposition UDF, by stating that his party would welcome the latter if its State chief MP Veerendra Kumar MP, expressed interest in the option.

JD-U leaders are admitting – though not overtly – that the JD-S invitation has come at a time when the very existence of their party is in a crisis following Nitish Kumar’s act of entering into an alliance with the BJP. Most leaders of the Kerala JD-U, claiming a socialist tradition in politics, are against any kind of cooperation with the BJP.

“We are basically socialists upholding secular principles and for the same reason, we cannot be part of a BJP-led alliance in the present circumstances,” said a senior JD-U leader. “We cannot approve of what Nitish Kumar has done. There is nothing wrong in joining hands with the JD-S but a decision will be taken in this regard only after detailed discussions,” he said.

Discussions have been going on within the JD-U about returning to the lDF by taking an indirect route – through a merger with the Janata Dal –S. A little over a month ago, CPI(M)’s State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had expressed readiness to welcome the JD-U into the left front provided that party took a clear political decision.

“We do welcome the invitation (from the State JD-S president), but we have to see how we can make it practical,” said Sheikh P Harris, Kerala JD-U’s general secretary. “The party has to think thoroughly about the possibilities (of the merger) since we are (currently) two different parties belonging two different political alliances,” he said.

The JD-U leadership had begun thinking of leaving the UDF and allying with the left following widespread dissatisfaction in the party over the “bad treatment” the party was getting from the Congress. According to the JD-U leadership, the party has not been able to achieve any growth as a constituent of the UDF due to the Congress’s alleged negative attitude.

The Kerala JD-U is a splinter group of the Janata Dal-Secular – then led by MP Veerendra Kumar – that had left the lDF just before the 2009 Parliament election after the CPI(M) took over the Kozhikode seat which it used to contest. The group was later renamed as Socialist Janata-Democratic (SJ-D), which merged with the Janata Dal-United in December, 2014.

In the wake of the developments in Bihar, the leadership of the Kerala JD-U had some days ago entrusted a five-member party committee headed by Veerendra Kumar with the task of taking a decision on the step to be taken in the new circumstance. Sources said the committee would meet to discuss the issue at the earliest and take a decision.

Most JD-U leaders feel that the alliance with the UDF had only yielded losses for them and they hold the Congress responsible for this. According to them, the UDF is an “unsystematic system” and the Congress is a den of groupism.

Also, leaders of both the JD-S and JD-U are of the opinion that a merger would help them to make bigger achievements in the coming elections, including the next lok Sabha polls. The JD-U had contested seven seats for the UDF in the 2016 Assembly election and had lost them all while the JD-S had contested five and bagged three of them.

Almost similar was the experience of the SJ-D, former Avatar of Kerala JD-U, in the 2011 Assembly election as well. The UDF had allotted six seats to that party then, but it could win only two while the JD(S) contested five seats and won four.