Patna, Aug. 30: The JD(U) leadership’s step-up in pressure to disqualify party dissident MPs from membership of both the Houses is turning party rebels towards Lalu Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan in a bid to make new political alignment in the state.
The JD(U) sources revealed that the party’s whip in the Rajya Sabha, Ali Anwar reminded the upper House’s chairman, Hamid Ansari about the party’s plea to disqualify Upendra Kushwaha from the House’s membership through a letter on August 9.
The party had petitioned Ansari for the purpose in May, which was not processed due to some technical errors in the petition. Anwar has reminded Ansari by furnishing “more facts” to substantiate the charge of anti-party activities on Kushwaha. The JD(U) leadership has also been following up on its petition to the Lok Sabha speaker, Meira Kumar to disqualify, Lallan Singh, Manganilal Mandal and Sushil Singh — the MPs from Munger, Jhanjharpur and Aurangabad — who were, earlier, found “guilty” of acting against the party in the 2010 Assembly polls by the JD(U)’s disciplinary committee.
Probably aware that Nitish Kumar, the party’s supreme leader by all accounts has shut the door for the dissidents and was in no mood to pardon them, most of them appear to be drifting towards the Lalu-Paswan combination.
It became evident when Kushwaha and Mandal were spotted at Paswan’s Iftar party here on Sunday. The RJD boss, too, was there at the party, extending warm welcome to Kushwaha and Mandal.
Of late, Kushwaha who is the convener of the Bihar Navnirman Manch — a forum formed by the JD(U) rebels — has been openly taking the line of Lalu. For instance, Kushwaha attacked the Nitish government for the police firing at Forbesganj, which left five Muslims dead and also demanded a CBI inquiry into the case.
Lalu and rebels, apparently, calculate that Nitish has earned the support of the non-Yadav backwards and extremely backward castes besides the Muslims in a big way, throwing his political rivals on the periphery in terms of support base. Kushwaha is a leader of the Koiris — a numerically sizeable caste and Mandal is an EBC leader. “If Kushwaha, Mandal, Lalu and Paswan combine, they might regain the support of the Yadavs, still with Lalu besides the Koiris, EBCs and Paswans,” a senior RJD leader confided, adding that the RJD boss has already been working hard to win back the Muslims.
“Let them (Lalu and dissidents) do all the machinations. It is not going to work against us,” remarked JD(U) general secretary and MP Shivanand Tiwary.
