opinion

Updated: Oct 28, 2019 22:31 IST

The Janata Dal (United) will formally hand over the reins of the party to chief minister Nitish Kumar at its national executive council meet in New Delhi on Wednesday, entrusting him the task to lead it through one of its challenging phase.

Kumar’s second term as party president coincides with the electoral reverses in three out of the four assembly bye-elections in Bihar a time when the JD (U) is set to go alone to expand footprint beyond the state, including in those states ruled by its NDA ally - the BJP.

The recent debacle in the bye-elections has once again fuelled speculation that all is not well within the NDA, despite BJP president Amit Shah’s declaration that Nitish Kumar would be the face of the alliance for 2020 assembly elections. Leaders and workers of the JD (U) and BJP have been blaming each other for the bypolls loss.

In that sense, the national executive council meeting in New Delhi will not only brainstorm over the causes for the poor showing in the bypolls but also mull on the way forward for approaching the upcoming assembly general elections in Jharkhand, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and, later, in Bihar.

The choice of national capital, where the national council meeting was re-scheduled from October 19 venue at Rajgir in view of the bypolls also fits into the party’s plan to build up the momentum for the Delhi assembly elections for which the state unit president Dayanand Rai has been making a pitch to contest all the 70 seats.

On May 23, Nitish Kumar has already addressed a workers’ conference in Delhi’s Badarpur locality, dominated by Poorvanchali population to motivate workers and mark the event as beginning of its poll campaign. Presently, Delhi units of the BJP and Congress are headed by Manoj Tiwari and Kirti Azad, both from Bihar.

It was Jharkhand JD (U) president Salkhan Murmu’s push to contest all the 81 seats and pitch to present Nitish model of governance as an alternative to BJP CM Raghubar Das that triggered a war of words between the two allies with several BJP leaders stepping in to defend Das and “reject” the idea.

The rumblings in the alliance had started when Nitish Kumar turned down the BJP’s offer of one berth the union cabinet following the Lok Sabha elections. Kumar stated that he preferred proportional representation formula, one he practiced in the state. In a tit-for-tat, he went on to fill JD (U) quota of ministers during cabinet expansion in the state shortly after the new Union cabinet was named.

Amit Shah’s statement backing Nitish Kumar may have given the impression that the BJP and the JD(U) would bury the hatchet, but a blog post by the BJP’s Bihar state unit chief Dr Sanjay Jaiswal on the eve of Diwali has underlined that the rift is still wide.

Jaiswal wrote that in Daraunda assembly segment, where the rebel saffron party leader Karanjeet Singh registered a huge win, there was a combined rebellion by the workers of both JD (U) and BJP against the NDA nominee.

Nitish Kumar’s second term as JD(U)’s national president will last till 2022. He was declared elected unopposed by the national election officer for organizational polls Anil Hedge on October 6, the last day for withdrawal of candidature for the party election.