In a setback for Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), 15 of the party’s 17 panchayat members in the Union Territory of Daman and Diu today joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. The development comes weeks after Kumar snapped ties with the BJP to realign with Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, resulting in the return of the Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar.
The BJP said that 15 out of 17 district panchayat members of JD(U) of Daman and Diu and the entire state unit joined the party on Monday. The saffron party said that the decision was against Nitish Kumar’s decision to leave the BJP “which had given impetus to development in Bihar and to choose the ‘Bahubali’, corrupt and a dynastic party”.
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Notably, the members quit the JD(U) barely hours after party spokesperson Nikul Mandal resigned from the post he had held for over six years citing “personal reasons”.
“JD(U)’s existence has been removed completely from here as their state unit fully merges with BJP. JDU’s politics of betrayal and decision to join hands with ‘bahubali’ did not sit well with people here,” said BJP leader Vijaya Rahatkar.
The developments mirror the happenings in Manipur earlier this month when five of the 6 JD(U) MLAs in the state joined the ruling BJP. This was the party’s highest tally in the state so far. The JD(U), which is the BJP’s partner in the state government until the defections, is reported to mulling its withdrawal.
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Similarly, a majority of JDU MLAs in Arunachal Pradesh joined the BJP recently. The lone remaining MLA also joined the saffron party in the presence of national president JP Nadda and Arunachal CM Pema Khandu at the end of August.
