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CPM’s Yechury, Cong’s Azad meet Sharad Yadav after Nitish wins trust vote in Bihar
The opposition leaders met Yadav, the JD(U)’s leader in the Rajya Sabha, apparently in an effort to convince him to break ranks with party chief and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar after he broke the grand alliance and renewed ties with the BJP.
In an apparent effort to persuade Sharad Yadav to break ranks with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury met Janata Dal (United) leader at his Tughlaq Road residence on Friday.
While Yadav is understood to be miffed with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s decision to align with the BJP, there have been speculations that the NDA camp was considering possibilities of offering him a Union cabinet berth to assuage his feelings.
A JD(U) source said the swiftness with which Kumar sealed the tie-up with the BJP within hours of walking out of the ‘mahagathbandhan’ of the RJD, JD(U) and the Congress on Wednesday evening, showed that it was a “pre-decided deal”.
“Sharad Yadav had been working to forge a grand alliance of opposition parties at the national level. He feels totally let down by Kumar’s move,” a leader close to him said.
Two Rajya Sabha members, Ali Anwar and M P Veerendra Kumar, have gone on record against Kumar’s decision. Yadav is the party’s leader in the RS where it has 10 MPs.
However, if Yadav does move against Kumar, the road ahead for him remains unclear. Sources said he does not have enough support to split the party and the vote in the Bihar assembly on Friday showed that party MLAs are firmly behind Kumar.
Several groups of university students also met Yadav at his residence, urging him to not join the NDA and be part of a “secular” grouping.
Senior BJP leader and finance minister Arun Jaitley has also spoken to Yadav in a bid to persuade him to continue to be a part of the NDA. Kumar too had spoken to him on Thursday.
(With PTI inputs)
