Working hard to regain the support of Bihar’s Muslims, the RJD on Tuesday welcomed back prominent Muslim leader and former Union minister Mohammed Taslimuddin, who had quit the party and joined the ruling JD(U) over two years ago.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav garlanded Mr Taslimuddin, a former RJD vice-president and three-term MP, several times and hugged him tightly at the rejoining ceremony, forgetting how the Kishanganj leader had ruthlessly criticised the RJD as a party of “sahib, biwi aur ghulam” (the master, his wife and their servants) while resigning in August 2009.
“I joined the JD(U) as Nitish Kumar promised to complete several pending development projects in my area. But I was wrong to believe in his words,” said Mr Taslimuddin, who was minister of state for food and civil supplies in the first UPA government. “Now I will work with Lalu Prasad Yadav to ensure Bihar’s real, rapid growth,” he told journalists. Asked to describe the difference he finds between Mr Yadav and Mr Kumar, Mr Taslimuddin said: “He (Kumar) tells 100 per cent lies.” With Kishanganj being India’s largest Muslim-populated area after the Kashmir Valley and Lakshadweep, the RJD hopes to regain its lost Muslim base there and elsewhere in Bihar with Mr Taslimuddin’s return.
The RJD is also in touch with its jailed former MP Mohammad Shahabuddin.