JD-U back in opposition camp for VP poll

Even as the BJP is expected to win the vice-presidential poll, the opposition hopes to make it yet another display of its unity, reports Archis Mohan.

The result of the vice-presidential election, scheduled for August 5, is a foregone conclusion in favour of the National Democratic Alliance. But the Opposition hopes to make it yet another display of its unity and mark it with the return of the Janata Dal-United to the anti-Bharatiya Janata Party camp.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has extended an olive branch to the JD-U leadership, and the Nitish Kumar-led party has committed to supporting the Opposition candidate for vice president.

On Tuesday, Gandhi, who returned earlier this week from his foreign sojourn, asked Bihar Congress chief Ashok Choudhary to take disciplinary action against state unit party leaders if they were to publicly criticise Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

According to sources, Gandhi told Choudhary that the Bihar CM was a trusted ally of the Congress and should be accorded respect. Choudhary is also the minister of education and information technology in the Bihar government.

Choudhary conveyed this to the JD-U leadership, which has been upset after Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad had questioned Kumar’s commitment to fighting the BJP in the wake of the JD-U’s decision to support the NDA’s Presidential candidate.

JD-U spokesperson K C Tyagi said the bitterness between the two parties has ended and the alliance in Bihar remained strong.

“We had said our support to NDA’s presidential candidate was a one-off, and we maintain that. We would support the Opposition’s vice-presidential candidate,” Tyagi said.

Meanwhile, in Patna on Wednesday, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad said at the foundation day of his party that the BJP would be finished in 2019 if Priyanka Gandhi, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal were to come together.

The last date for filing of nominations for the vice-presidential poll is July 18.

The BJP expects to win the election comfortably, but Congress leaders have started reaching out to other opposition parties.

Gandhi, also political advisor to party President Sonia Gandhi, is in talks with Opposition leaders. He has phoned Communist Party of India’s D Raja and others.

Leaders of the 17 Opposition parties are likely to meet early next week.

The Left and the JD-U, meanwhile, have asked the Congress to focus on unifying the opposition, and adopt united protests inside Parliament during the monsoon session, as well as outside it, to raise issues of agrarian distress and incidents of mob lynching.

The BJP on Wednesday continued with its attack on RJD chief Prasad and his family for amassing wealth and properties by corrupt means.

BJP leader Sushil Modi called Prasad “Bihar’s Robert Vadra”. He asked Bihar CM Kumar to break his silence and act against his ally.

Modi accused Kumar of indirectly patronising corruption with two of Prasad’s sons being ministers in his government.

The BJP leader also claimed that two senior RJD leaders had met two Union ministers to request them to save the political careers of Prasad’s sons, but these ministers had rejected the plea.

IMAGE: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, DMK working president MK Stalin and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi at a function to celebrate the 94th birthday of DMK leader M Karunanidhi in Chennai on June 3, 2017. Photograph: PTI Photo