Nitish Kumar to hold rally in Delhi on Wednesday; JD(U) member joins AAP

Assembly polls in Delhi are slated to be held early next year. Purvanchalis are people from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh settled in Delhi, and they play an important role in any election in the city.

Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar will hold a rally in New Delhi on Wednesday. Ahead of Kumar’s rally, however, JD (U) functionary and Purvanchali leader Narendra Singh on Monday joined the Aam Aadmi Party in the presence of AAP lawmaker Sanjay Singh in Delhi.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will address a rally in New Delhi on October 23, 2019. (Santosh Kumar / HT Photo)

Assembly polls in Delhi are slated to be held early next year. Purvanchalis are people from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh settled in Delhi, and they play an important role in any election in the city. On Wednesday, Kumar is scheduled to address a rally in the Purvanchali-dominated Badarpur area to mark the beginning of JD(U)’s  poll campaign.

The party’s ambition to expand its national footprint got a boost after it won seven out of 60 assembly seats in Arunachal Pradesh , next only to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party which bagged 41 seats and secured a majority, in May this year. However, it performed badly in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Gujarat and Kerala.

The party won one seat in the 2010 Delhi assembly polls; in 2015, it failed to open account. According to the criteria set by the Election Commission, a national party needs to get at least 6% of the votes from a minimum of four states, or 2% of the total seats in the Lok Sabha from at least three states, or it should be recognised as a state party in at least four states.