Rebel RJD leader Ram Kripal Yadav on Wednesday joined the BJP heaping praise on BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and charged his former mentor and RJD chief lalu Prasad with promoting family interests at the cost of social justice.
Yadav joined the BJP in the presence of party president Rajnath Singh, former Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Sushil Kumar Modi and BJP’s Deputy leader of the Rajya Sabha Ravi Shankar Prasad. Yadav was keen to contest from the Pataliputra seat on which the RJD has allotted to lalu’s daughter Misa Bharti.
Strongly backing Modi, Yadav said he was proud that the BJP had nominated a tea-seller coming from a backward class as its prime ministerial candidate and vowed to strive hard to make him the Prime Minister.
He praised Modi for improving the plight of Gujarat Muslims. Yadav accused the Nitish Kumar Government of raising the bogey of communalism for the sake of votes and not doing any development work. Yadav lashed out at his former chief for giving precedence to his clan over the party’s ideology and programme.
“RJD has moved away from its core values. lalu gave precedence to his family over party and cadre. I was in a dilemma on what to do for the last few days and then decided to quit the party and join the BJP for the sake of giving social justice,” said the former close aide to Prasad who looked quite happy joining the new party.
Welcoming him into the party, the BJP president said Yadav has been RJD’s secretary general for the last 17 years and had decided to support the BJP.
He said he will work for the party not as a leader but as a worker, which he has been for the last 35 years of his political life. “I will be always available to all my workers and supporters anytime in the day or night,” he said.
Yadav, a former legislator and a Rajya Sabha member, accused lalu Prasad of “promoting” his family over his party workers, who he said, were feeling suffocated due to latter’s style of functioning.
“I have never been a leader. I have been a common worker in my 35 years of working in the RJD. The RJD workers in Bihar are feeling suffocated as family is being given importance. I felt social justice should be taken forward and not family justice,” Yadav said in the presence of top BJP leadership while Singh shook his head approvingly.
Meanwhile, All India NRC of Puducherry is the new addition to the rainbow alliance floated by the BJP in south India. Wednesday saw N Rangasamy, the Chief Minister of Puducherry and the president of the AINRC declaring his support for Modi.
“We in AINRC want to see a strong and united India. This could be realised only if Narendra Modi becomes the Prime Minister of the country. The All India NRC would contest the lone lok sabha seat from Puducherry as a constituent of the National Democratic Alliance led by the BJP,” Rangasamay told The Pioneer over telephone from Puducherry.
The AINRC has nominated Radhakrishnan, former Speaker of the Puducherry legislative Assembly (2006 to 2011), as the party’s candidate for the April 24 lok Sabha election. Radhakrishnan, a Congress leader had quit the party in 2013.
Rangasamy, who is serving as the Chief Minister of the Union Territory for the third term, is a former Congressman. He too quit the Congress and formed the AINRC in 2011 disgusted over the factionalism in the party promoted and sponsored by the Congress High Command.
Puducherry is represented in the lok Sabha by V Narayanasamy, a bête noire of Rangasamy. With Rangasamy, a popular and non-controversial politician, fielding Radhakrishnan, it is going to be a tough battle for Narayanasamy as well as the Congress.