Bihar’s ruling JD(U) on Monday handed a second term to its sitting state president Vashisth Narayan Singh in an ongoing effort by the party to woo the state’s upper castes and strike a perfect caste equation in preparation for major elections in the next two years.
Mr Singh, an upper-caste Rajput leader and a Rajya Sabha member, was declared JD(U) state unit president after his nomination for the post faced no contests. The soft-spoken leader, addressed as “Dada” by most partymen, has been a close confidant of chief minister and JD(U) strongman Nitish Kumar and already served as state unit chief for about two-and-a-half years.
Sources said, Mr Singh got a fresh tenure as much owing to Mr Kumar’s wish and insistence as his first appointment in December 2010.