With rising tension in Bihar politics, senior Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav hit out at party president and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday, saying the party is not Kumar’s alone but belonged to him too.
“JD-U sirf Nitish Kumar ki hi party nahi hai, yeh meri bhi party hai,” Yadav said in Bihar’s Madhepura district on the last day of his three-day Samvad Yatra to meet people and interact with them. He told them of his displeasure and pain over Nitish Kumar’s decision to break the Grand Alliance of JD-U, RJD and Congress and join hands with the BJP and form a government.
Nitish Kumar is the JD-U national president and said to fully control the party in Bihar. “There are two JD-Us in Bihar, one is ‘sarkari’ (official) and another is ‘janata’ (of the people). All the party legislators, leaders, who are close to the government for personal benefit are with Nitish Kumar, but leaders and workers close to the people are with me,” Sharad Yadav said.
Refusing to comment on his replacement in the parliament, Yadav said that when he had “not been afraid of Indira Gandhi, what do others matter”.
“I am not afraid of any one to speak the truth and stand by my principles,” he said in reference to his fight against Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi in the mid 70s, when he was a student leader close to Jayaprakash Narayan, who led the movement that ousted Indira Gandhi from power for the first time in 1977.
