JD-U crackdown on rebel leaders starts

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The “appropriate time” indicated a month ago by the JD(U) leadership in Bihar to take disciplinary action against the party’s rebel leaders seems to have arrived. To begin with, the Nitish Kumar-led government has asked one rebel JD(U) MP to vacate a palatial residence in Patna he has been occupying since he was a minister.

Nearly a dozen senior JD(U) leaders, including several MPs, had stubbornly disassociated themselves from the party’s campaigns for the Assembly polls and some of them had even fielded their kin on tickets from rival parties, thus trying to jeopardise the official JD(U) candidates. Needless to say, none of the relatives of the disgruntled JD(U) leaders won the polls that gave a thumping three-fourths majority to the JD(U)-BJP alliance.
Monazir Hasan, the JD(U) MP from Begusarai, was asked to vacate the bungalow on Patna’s posh Bailey Road last week reportedly after the party’s new Bihar unit chief, Vashisth Narayan Singh, persuaded the government to step up pressures on the MP. Mr Hasan has been occupying the regally furnished building since he became Bihar’s housing minister and did not vacate it despite his removal from the ministry in 2008 and subsequent election to the Lok Sabha in 2009. Mr Hasan, a critic of Nitish Kumar, had got his wife, Shabnam Parveen, to contest the Assembly polls in Munger on an RJD ticket.
JD(U) leaders are reportedly considering some tough disciplinary action against Munger MP and former Bihar JD(U) chief Rajiv Ranjan Singh, alias Lalan, who issued strong anti-Nitish statements and openly worked for the Congress without even resigning from the JD(U). None of the Congress candidates backed by Mr Singh won the polls in Munger and adjoining districts.
Two other JD(U) MPs most likely to face punitive action by the party are Karakat MP Mahabali Singh and Aurangabad MP Sushil Kumar Singh. The former’s son and the latter’s brother had contested the Assembly polls on RJD tickets with the MPs reportedly working to ensure their victory.
The JD(U)’s Muzaffarpur MP, Jainarayan Nishad, is also likely to face disciplinary action for his “non-cooperative activities” during the campaigns, said party sources.
“Disciplinary action would be carried out wherever it is due...,” said Vashisth Narayan Singh.