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| Lallan Singh (top) and Upendra Kushwaha. Telegraph pictures |
Patna, Jan. 15: Axe may fall on some senior JD (U) leaders with the party issuing “showcause” notice to 12 MPs and MLCs besides over 250 other partymen for indulging in anti-party activities during the recently concluded Assembly elections.
JD (U) president Sharad Yadav, in fact, hinted at stringent action when he accepted the resignation of senior leader Upendra Kushwaha from the post of the party general secretary. Kushwaha, a Rajya Sabha MP, hailing from the backward Koiri caste, had tendered his resignation from the key party post in September last year, alleging that dedicated party workers had been denied nominations in the Assembly polls.
Taking into consideration his caste factor, the party leadership had refrained from accepting his resignation while the poll process was on. Party sources said the resignation was accepted as Kushwaha refused to take back his papers.
The showcause notice, asking the MPs and MLCs to appear before the party’s disciplinary committee on January 27 and January 29, has created some sort of tremor in the JD (U) with the leaders under scanner, particularly the MPs, raising questions on the authority of the disciplinary panel.
“The state’s disciplinary committee has no authority to issue showcause notice to the MPs,” Kushwaha said.
Former state party chief and rebel party MP Lallan Singh said: “I will write to Sharad Yadav about my activities.”
The MPs believed to have been issued showcause notice include Manganilal Mandal, Vidya Sahar Nishad, Monazir Hasan, Sushil Kumar Singh besides Lallan singh and Upendra Kushwaha. “We have issued showcause notice to the leaders in the wake of the allegations of anti-party activities levelled by some candidates who contested the polls,” disciplinary committee chairman Gyanendra Singh Gyanu told The Telegraph.
Lallan Singh, who represents the Munger seat in the Lok Sabha, said that some of the candidates from the Assembly segments in his constituency had accused him of campaigning for the Congress, making a basis for the showcause notice against him. “But the fact remains that I did not visit the segments concerned during the campaigning,” Lallan said.
The rebels, on condition of anonymity, even questioned the “status” of the present state JD (U) president Basishtha Narayan Singh in the party under whom the disciplinary committee operates.
“He (Basishtha) joined the JD (U) on the eve of the Assembly elections when he failed to get an RJD ticket,” said a rebel MP.
He had openly campaigned for the RJD during the by-elections on the Bikramganj Lok Sabha seat,” said a rebel MP, asking, “How can a leader who has violated the discipline, issue a disciplinary whip against the party leaders.”
Gyanendra Singh Gyanu, however, justified the disciplinary committee action saying, “The leaders who have been issued notice should reply to the allegations levelled on them. We will only make recommendations about the action to be taken on the complaints to the party’s national president (Sharad) and party’s supreme leader (Nitish Kumar). The eventual decision about their fate lies with Sharad ji and Nitish ji.”
The grapevine has it that emboldened by its landslide success, the party is in no mood to spare the leaders who acted against its interests during the polls. It is a common knowledge that Monazir Hasan’s wife contested on an RJD ticket from the Munger seat and the former campaigned for her. Similarly, Aurangabad MP Sushil Kumar Singh supported his brother Sunil Singh contesting from the Aurangabad Assembly seat on RJD ticket.
And Lallan Singh along with the then Banka MP, late Digvijay Singh, had constituted a forum of farmers which openly gave a call to dislodge the Nitish Kumar government ahead of the Assembly elections.