With Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s views being at variance, contrary to the decisions of his allies, the JD(U) is holding a State working committee meeting on July 2 and its national executive meeting on July 23 amid speculation that the party might adopt a separate way for its future course of action. In recent times, Nitish, who is also national president of JD(U), took stands on certain crucial issues different to his allies or other secular parties like support to GST, backing of NDA’s presidential candidate Ramnath Kovind, demonetisation and surgical strike.
The Sunday meeting will be attended by Nitish and the invitees are office bearers and executive members. A senior functionary said on Saturday that the agenda of the meeting was still not known. But it is expected that Nitish will brief his partymen about his position and discuss the prevailing political scenario. The party has come under sharp attack from allies Congress and RJD over its stand on Presidential election and Nitish’s refusal to support Congress pick Meira Kumar. The issue created differences within the maha gathbandhan with Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad making acidic remarks against Nitish. The differences turned so deep that people started suspecting the survival of this two years old grand alliance.
The national executive meeting will be held after the result of the Presidential election and the party is likely to chart out its course of action particularly the 2019 general election. Even though the senior leaders of the JD(U) including secretary general KC Tyagi announced that the alliance would continue beyond 2019 and 2020 polls, sources said that party could have some rethinking in view of criticism of Nitish by the leaders of the allies.
The JD(U) has to take decision on the Vice President election too and it would be interesting to see if the party supports UPA’s nominee or the NDA’s. If Nitish decides to back NDA once again it could be a big jolt to the bid for opposition unity prior to next lok Sabha polls.
Party national secretary Shyam Rajak said both the meetings were routine and have nothing to do with the current political happenings in the alliance. “State working committee meets every three months and we will discuss organisational issues,” he said without elaborating the agenda.
JD(U)’s former president Sharad Yadav is reportedly unhappy with the going on in the party and the stands taken by Nitish. Yadav was staying in Saharsa without any business and keeping a distance from the political happenings. His supporters feel that Yadav was being sidelined by the party and he was not consulted on crucial issues.