Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was on Sunday unanimously elected as JD(U) president, a move that would put him in complete command of the party. His election at the party’s National Executive meeting brought an end to the decade-old tenure of Sharad Yadav, who had ruled himself out for a fourth term.
It is for the first time that Kumar, JD(U)’s face in Bihar, has been elected president of the State-centric party which now prepares for the 2019 lok Sabha polls after a spectacular win through alliance partners the RJD and the Congress in November 2015 Assembly polls. The party had suffered a jolt in the 2014 lok Sabha polls in the heat of Modi wave.
“Humbled by party’s trust in me. Will try my best to carry Sharad Yadav’s legacy forward and I accept the new role as president of JD(U),” Kumar tweeted after his election. The National Council of the party will meet in Patna on April 23 to ratify Kumar’s election to the top post.
After his election to the top post, Kumar conveyed to the executive members about efforts being made to bring parties with similar ideologies together. He is already in talks with Ajit Singh-led RlD and former Jharkhand Chief Minister Babulal Marandi’s Jharkhand Vikas Morcha for a merger. A similar merger move to bring together six Janata Parivar outfits including the Samajwadi Party turned futile last year ahead after SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav walked out of the talks.
Party leader and Rajya Sabha member K C Tyagi said the party sees the next year’s Uttar Pradesh assembly polls as a major battle before the 2019 lok Sabha elections. “We stopped them (BJP) in Bihar and we are working to stop them in UP,” he said.
Asked if JD(U) would make another attempt at merger with Samajwadi Party, Tyagi remarked that Mulayam Singh Yadav as well as BSP supremo Mayawati had made it clear they will go it alone in the elections.
Nitish Kumar’s name was proposed by Sharad Yadav and seconded by the party’s secretary general K C Tyagi, general secretary Javed Raza, among others. Nitish Kumar’s predecessors - George Fernandes and Sharad Yadav--were from outside Bihar. The Bihar CM praised Yadav’s contribution to building the JD (U) and said he will continue to be a “margdarshak” (mentor) to the party.
Yadav, one of the founder leaders of the party along with Nitish Kumar, had been at the helm since 2006 and was reelected for a third term in 2013 after the JD(U) constitution was amended to allow him a third term in office.