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Chaos in Bihar JD-U as chief quits

Soroor Ahmed in Patna

The Bihar unit of the Janata Dal (United) has been thrown into turmoil with the resignation of its president, Ram Jiwan Singh, on Sunday.

Singh's action puts a question mark on the re-unification of the Janata Dal and the Samata Party in the state.

Singh was unavailable for comment; soon after faxing his letter of resignation to party chief Sharad Yadav, he left for his hometown Begusarai, citing his grandson's illness.

In New Delhi, Yadav also refused to comment, saying it would further complicate matters.

Though Singh has not cited any reason for his resignation, it is widely believed that he took the step to protest against denial of the party ticket for the Begusarai Lok Sabha seat. The Begusarai ticket has gone to Shyamsunder Singh Dheeraj, a senior Congress politician who crossed over to the JD-U only last week.

The erstwhile Janata Dal activists are incensed at the virtual hijacking of the party by Samata politicians Nitish Kumar and George Fernandes.

Ram Jiwan Singh was perturbed because the central leadership did not even deem it fit to consult him before allotting the Begusarai ticket. According to party sources, Singh had opposed the move to give party tickets to any "turncoats" when he was in Delhi a few days ago.

A senior JD-U politician, who wished to remain anonymous, told rediff.com that former railway minister Nitish Kumar was instrumental in bringing Dheeraj into the party to win over the Bhumihars in his own constituency, Barh.

Dheeraj, a former Bihar minister, is an influential politician of the Bhumihar community in Barh, which is palpably unhappy with Kumar's alleged neglect.

But while Kumar may have succeeded in soothing the Bhumihars in his constituency, it has come at the cost of the JD-U state chief, also a Bhumihar.

Ram Jiwan Singh was all set to take on Congress candidate Rajo Singh, a member of the twelfth Lok Sabha, in Begusarai, which has a large population of Bhumihars. Rajo Singh has never lost an election, be it for the state assembly or Parliament.

Ram Jiwan Singh made Begusarai a prestige issue not only because he is a local politician, but also because he has nursed the constituency from the days when he was a minister in the first Laloo Prasad Yadav Cabinet.

He had the backing of state-level Janata politicians who say they have got nothing from the merger though it was they who fought Laloo Yadav for the last two years and resisted the temptation to join his Rashtriya Janata Dal.

The rank and file is sore that the party's central leadership initiated the merger solely to accommodate Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Yadav.

Since the JD-U is already packed with leaders and there is a big queue of ticket aspirants, any move to give tickets to newcomers was bound to cause resentment. Moreover, Dheeraj was in the Congress, which had opposed the imposition of President's rule in Bihar, which the Dal and Samata Party had vociferously demanded. But things will be sorted out, JD-U spokesman Laxmi Sahu told rediff.com

Ram Jiwan Singh's move has reopened the question of merger of the two parties in the state. Though both Dal and Samata politicians insist that the merger has not taken place at the state level and the two parties are simply contesting on the JD-U's symbol, Singh's letter said he is resigning from the post of JD-U president and from the party's steering committee.

Samata politicians, on the other hand, say the JD-U is yet to take shape in the state and nobody made Singh the Bihar unit president.

In short, chaos reigns. While Laxmi Sahu says he should be spokesman of the JD-U, Samata spokesman P K Sinha says he is unaware of his present status. But he claims to continue to function as spokesman of the Samata Party.

State Samata chief Raghunath Jha, however, has no time to meddle in these organisational tussles. As the JD-U candidate in Gopalganj, he is too busy with the election campaign right now.

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