Patna: The ruling Janata Dal United (JD-U) headed by Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has announced plans to support the opposition in India’s vice-presidential elections, scheduled to be held on August 5.
“The JD-U will support the opposition if it announces its candidate for the vice-presidential polls,” the party’s national spokesperson K.C. Tyagi has told the media.
He also announced plans to attend a meeting of the opposition over the issue, describing the JD-U support to the NDA in the presidential elections as a “one-off” decision by the party.
The move assumes significance given the fact that the JD-U is currently supporting the BJP-led NDA’s presidential candidate Ram Nath Kovind, indicating lack of unity in the opposition camp.
The JD-U has refused to change its decision for the presidential nominee despite repeated requests from its allies, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) led by Lalu Prasad and the Congress party although they all are partners in the ruling grand alliance government in the state.
What is further significant is that the JD-U supported the NDA candidate against opposition’s Meira Kumar — who is from the Congress party — although she hails from Bihar and is also a prominent Dalit face. Kumar is daughter of veteran Dalit leader Babu Jagjivan Singh.
The logic given by the JD-U for supporting the NDA candidate in the presidential polls — despite being in the opposition — was that Kovind as the Governor of Bihar maintained very good relations with the state government and never got involved in any controversy unlike his other predecessors.
The development comes after top Congress leadership reached out at a rapprochement with the JD-U and warned its leaders against speaking against the Bihar chief minister.
The situation had turned serious in the opposition after both the RJD and the Congress launched attacks on the chief minister for his “vacillating” stand and asked him to correct his decision which they termed as “historic blunder”.
This triggered a bitter war of words among the allies. The chief minister launched his sharpest attacks on the Congress asking the grand old party not to “preach lessons about principles”.
“It is you who is changing principles,” Kumar told a meeting of his in Patna on Sunday, referring to the Congress which accused the chief minister of harbouring different principles.
He added, “I am firms believer in the views of Mahatma Gandhi but the Congress has never been consistent in treading the path shown by Gandhi or Nehru. We don’t need to take lessons on principles from them”.
But, now the Congress has “corrected” its stand and termed Kumar as one of the “trusted” allies which helped the grand alliance checkmate BJP-led NDA in the last assembly elections in Bihar. Reports said the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will very soon be meeting the Bihar chief minister to clear any “confusion” if any between them.
