Patna,(BiharTimes): A day after virtually declining to contest election for any seat the Janata Dal (United) on Sunday evening finally decided to field candidates for the three Rajya Sabha seats for which by-election is due later this month.
However, the formal announcement was made on Monday (June 9) morning––that is only a few hours before the deadline for nomination expires. 
The decision to contest the by-election was taken after a prolong meeting between former chief minister Nitish Kumar and the party national president, Sharad Yadav.
Apart from Sharad, the other two candidates to be fielded are Pawan Verma, diplomat-turned-cultural advisor to the Bihar chief minister and Ghulam Rasool Balyawi, whose name came as a big surprise as he was nowhere in the race. In fact he was sulking ever since he was denied Lok Sabha ticket earlier this year.
So neither the former Union minister M A A Fatmi, who quit RJD recently, nor the Congress general secretary, Dr Shakeel Ahmed, would be sent to the Rajya Sabha by the party.
Earlier, the party dropped enough hint to suggest that it would not contest any election. The party spokesman, Neeraj Kumar, had said a couple of days back that it would not be morally appropriate for the the JD(U) to contest election as the seats were earlier represented by Rajiv Pratap Rudi of the BJP, Ram Vilas Paswan of LJP and Ram Kripal Yadav of RJD. 
Though no final announcement was made on not contesting the election, yet bySunday evening the party took a sort of U-turn. Now nobody is talking about principle and morality on the issue.
Political observers are of the view that there seems to be total chaos in the Janata Dal (United) with party changing its decision at the drop of a hat. It seems that Sharad has prevailed upon Nitish and compelled the latter to contest election.
It was a hectic Sunday with the rebel MLAs calling on Sharad Yadav at the state guest house. They met for two and a half hours, but Sharad did not say anything after the meeting.