Patna, (Bihar Times): The Rashtriya Janata Dal became
the seventh party to get national recognition. The
Election Commission on Tuesday accorded this status to
it after the increase in vote share of the party in
the recently held assembly election in Nagaland.
The RJD, which came up in 1997, now joins the rank of
the national party.The RJD is the seventh political party to get the national status. The others are the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
The EC announcement just before the parliamentary election came as a shot in arm to the RJD, which is otherwise passing through the period of serious introspection. Railway minister and party chief Lalu Yadav attributed this recognition to the hardwork and commitment of the party workers.
“Since the RJD has got more than six percent votes in four states, namely, Bihar, Jharkhand, Nagaland and Manipur, in the last assembly elections, we had written to the Election Commission of India to grant us the status of a national party. We got the relevant letter Tuesday,” RJD general secretary Ram Deo Bhandari told IANS.
Apart from assembly votes, the RJD also fulfilled the other criterion of having at least four Lok Sabha MPs - it has 24 MPs in the lower house.
The RJD applied to the Election Commission in May but there was a delay in the decision as the poll panel was busy with the Karnataka assembly elections.
