A Janata Dal (United) delegation submitted affidavits of an “overwhelming” number of the party's elected members and office-bearers in support of Nitish Kumar's leadership to the Election Commission (EC) and urged it to reject the claims of the Sharad Yadav faction over the party's poll symbol.
JD(U) leaders, led by its Parliamentary party leader in the Rajya Sabha R C P Singh,Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Sanjay Jha and secretary general K C Tyagi, urged the EC to take an early decision in the matter.
Both factions-Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Sharad Yadav are staking claim over the party symbol for which they have sought the EC's intervention.
“We have submitted the affidavits of all the 71 party MlAs, all the 30 MlCs, both the lok Sabha members and seven of the 10 Rajya Sabha members of the party, supporting the leadership of Nitish Kumar,” Tyagi said after meeting with EC officials.
Tyagi added that Yadav had urged the Rajya Sabha chairman to defer the decision on the JD(U)'s application to annul his membership because the EC was yet to take a decision as to which of the rival factions represented the “real” party.