20/12/2016

RJD gears up to take to street as JD(U) shifts stand





Patna,(BiharTimes): Emboldened by the news of growing resentment within the BJP and RSS over demonetization and gradual shift in Janata Dal (United)’s stand  on the issue Rashtriya Janata Dal has decided to go on warpth against the Narendra Modi government.

The decision in this regard was taken by the party at its meeting on ‘notebandi’ held at Rabri Devi’s bungalow on December 17.

Lalu Prasad said on this occasion the RJD would hold mass awareness programmes across the state from December 20 to 26 to be followed by a dharna at every district collectorate on December 28.

He asked why Narendra Modi was silent on the seizure of new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes from the houses of BJP leaders.

He reiterated that BJP’s ‘notebandi’ would fail like Congress party’s ‘nasbandi’ (family planning campaign) four decades back.

Though RJD had, from the very beginning, adopted a different line and took part in the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress sit-in here on November 28, yet it was finding itself in a bit uncomfortable position as the main alliance partner in Bihar, Janata Dal (United) led by president Nitish Kumar had a different view on demonetization.

But the gradual shift in Nitish’s own stand on the issue has come as a sigh of relief to the RJD. The party leadership was a bit surprised over the stand of Bihar chief minister even though several other senior Janata Dal (United) leaders, such as Sharad Yadav, had always been participating in almost all the  anti-demonetization campaign in Delhi.

While all these developments were going on the media started linking Nitish’s action to his ‘ghar wapsi’ to the BJP-led NDA.

RJD leaders failed to fathom as to why Nitish had taken such a position at the time when there was perfect understanding between the two main partners of the Grand Alliance.

Lalu had only a few months back even backed Nitish’s candidature for the post of prime minister.

Political observers are of the view that the only objective left for RJD chief is to see to it that his son, Tejaswi Prasad Yadav, become the chief minister.

As he does not wan to jeopardize this prospect of his son he did almost nothing to save his party’s former MP, Shahabuddin. The RJD supremo always dissociated himself from the utterances of his own party’s vice president, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who would spare no time to target Bihar CM.

Yet, one way or the other, Nitish had last month sent the signal that he is drifting away from the Grand Alliance. A section of media even reported that he had met BJP chief Amit Shah. It took several day for the JD(U) president to deny this report.

There were some anxious moments not only for the RJD, but also for some JD(U) leaders, who failed to understand Nitish’s stand. All this had happened when the Bihar CM had twice called on Lalu, who was not keeping up well those days.

More than 40 days after demonetization there is a sense of easiness in the Grand Alliance camp. In this changing scenario the RJD rank and file may adopt more aggressive posture than they did while participating in Mamata’s sit-in.

 

 

 

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