There are two Janata Dal (United)s. One is the sarkari—government, and the other is the asli—the real. Saying so at Sonepur where his Bahujan Chaupal Yatra made its first halt on Wednesday, Sharad Yadav, who was for ten long years the president of JD(U) made it amply clear that he and the present party president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had divorced. All that was left for the relationship to end was for him to be expelled by the party. That way, he will be able to retain his Rajya Sabha seat.
By sarkari JD(U) he meant those who were in government and in the company of the BJP, while by “real” he meant the others, particularly those who had voted for the grand alliance in September 2015 assembly elections.
The breaking point was not really because Yadav helped Ahmad Patel of the Congress get one all important vote at the cost of violating the party whip in the Rajya Sabha elections from Gujarat. It catapulted Patel to victory, and led to the embarrassment of Nitish Kumar who is part of the NDA and runs a coalition government in his state. Yadav brazenly tweeted his congratulatory message to Patel and posted a picture of the two of them together!
Ahmad Patel's victory was the result of Yadav's anger over developments in the party in Bihar. A founding member of the party, Yadav is angry over his party joining the BJP bandwagon. He has gone on record to say that he had no clue to Kumar's idea of resigning and was even more scandalised at the manner in which he became the chief minister of a JD(U)-BJP coalition government the next morning. “There was absolutely no discussion in the party, let alone the alliance,” said Yadav. He has asserted that he continues to be with the grand alliance, and charges the chief minister with betraying the trust of 11 crore voters who gave the mandate to the grand alliance.
Yadav resigned from the post of president in April 2016, and Nitish was for the first time elected party president in order to make him the face of the JD(U) that wanted to spread itself beyond the Hindi heartland, particularly Bihar.
Even before Nitish Kumar became president, he became the second pole in the party, with Yadav being the first. Yet, they worked as a team, and Sharad Yadav stood by Nitish Kumar when he snapped his links with the BJP and NDA, and also when he formed the grand alliance ahead of the assembly elections in 2015.
Yadav's Bahujan Chaupal—interaction with the masses—Yatra is meant to go on till Saturday. There are, according to reports, very few party members in his caravan. Many in the JD(U) apprehend that just the way Nitish Kumar landed in the lap of the BJP, Sharad Yadav may find himself in the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Yadav.
JD(U) leader K.C. Tyagi says the national executive of the party will meet in Patna on August 19.
