Voices of dissent within Bihar’s ruling JD(U) are becoming more nagging and numerous since the party went ahead with its agenda of taking disciplinary action against several senior leaders accused of engaging in anti-party activities during last year’s Assembly polls.
While hundreds of JD(U) leaders from Bihar’s districts came to the party’s state headquarters in Patna and painstakingly explained their innocence before a three-member disciplinary committee, some influential leaders keep refusing to attend these hearings despite repeated summons. Scores district and block-level leaders had returned from the hearings saying they were being made scapegoats for unfair political motives.
Munger MP and former JD(U) state president Rajiv Ranjan Singh, a well-known rebel who openly led an anti-Nitish faction within the party before the Assembly polls, and Rajya Sabha member Upendra Kushwaha deliberately missed two dates earmarked for their appearance. By saying they would answer only to JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav, the duo fuelled what party insiders describe as fresh anti-Nitish sentiments.
Although Monazir Hassan, MP from Begusarai and a minister in Kumar’s Cabinet in the first NDA government, appeared before the committee headed by party MLA Gyanendra Singh Gyanu, he managed to explain the fact of his wife contesting the Assembly polls as an RJD candidate. “What can you do if one’s relative refuses to obey your orders?” Hassan told the committee, which is still undecided about what action to take against the important minority leader.
Fresh trouble to the chief minister’s leadership came from MLC Prem Kumar Mani when he declared the state government’s formation of a commission for the upper-caste poor as a meaningless exercise.
In a sudden outburst, he sought to discredit an important caste-based initiative that was one of the JD(U)’s promises in the election manifesto. Mani did not appear before the committee last Saturday.