Bihar JD(U) president Bashisht Narayan Singh (extreme right) shakes hands with Shakeel Ahmad Khan (extreme left) as chief minister Nitish Kumar (centre) looks on, in Patna on Friday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, July 29: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today welcomed former RJD leader Shakeel Ahmad Khan with open arms to the JD(U) and said that his induction would be beneficial to the party.

Khan, who was the law minister in Lalu Prasad regime, had resigned from the RJD a week back citing indiscipline a reason for his departure from the party. Khan accepted the membership of the JD(U) in the presence of party state president Bashisht Narayan Singh in the party office today.

While handing over the party membership card, Nitish said: “He (Shakeel) will make the JD(U) stronger and I am happy that he has joined the party. Though he took some time to take this decision, it is always better late than never. I wanted him to join us long time back. There is nothing much to talk about him because he has already made his name and is an established person. I have always had high regards for him. I have been respecting him despite he being in the Opposition”.

Nitish added: “Shakeel was in the Opposition but he was doing his job properly. He is also an advocate and knows how to deal with the legal issues. When he was in the RJD, I knew very well that he could not do any work, which he wanted to do. But in the JD(U), it’s nothing as such. Our party is like a family and we treat everyone equally. There is a lot of work to do here and we have many important issues coming ahead.”

The chief minister then went on to slam the RJD chief Lalu Prasad and said: “The Opposition’s role should not only be to comment and slam others. They must also get involved in some constructive work. They must think about the people of the state, there should be healthy politics. Before training his (Lalu) party workers, I would suggest Laluji to first get trained himself”.

Praising Nitish after accepting the party membership, Khan said: “Bihar is fortunate that we have such a talented chief minister, who is doing a lot of development work in the state and is trying to make it corruption free. If this happens, people will remember him forever. Though I am not a big fish in politics, I can still say that Nitish would take the state forward.”

He added: “It is a historical day of my life and from today I will be starting a new era in politics. Nitish’s demand for a special category status for Bihar is genuine and the state covers all criteria to secure the status. Nitish’s move against corruption in the state is commendable. Nitish is secular, great planner, great executer, great performer and a great thinker. Today, in the presence of all the respected leaders, I accept him as my leader.”

Other leaders like power minister Bijendra Yadav, food minister Shyam Rajak, human resource development minister P.K. Shahi and agriculture minister Narendra Singh was also present at the function.