Former Jharkhand Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Saryu Roy has joined Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) or JD(U).
The move is expected to strengthen JD(U), which is a key BJP ally at the Centre and in Bihar, ahead of the assembly polls in Jharkhand this year.
Roy was inducted into JD(U) in the presence of Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Kumar Jha, Bihar ministers Ashok Choudhary and Shravan Kumar, and Jharkhand JD (U)’s Khiry Mahto on Sunday.
Roy rebelled against the BJP before forming the Bhartiya Janata Morcha. In 2019, he contested against the then-chief minister Raghubar Das from Jamshedpur (East).
Around two dozen Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) functionaries from Samastipur were also inducted into Bihar’s ruling party on Sunday.
Bihar minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary maintained Kumar’s policies were drawing people to the JD (U). He hit out at RJD for trying to take credit for the caste-based survey or increase in reservation for the backward classes, extremely backward classes, scheduled castes, and scheduled tribes.
“RJD is desperate…it was never serious about it [survey]and there never was any initiative from it when it was in power and had the opportunity. It was the sole initiative of Kumar and the decision was taken for the first time in June 2022 when Bihar had the [BJP-led] NDA [National Democratic Alliance] government.”
Choudhary said Kumar built a consensus. He added that he got the necessary legislation unanimously passed in the Bihar legislature based on the data collected.
“Kumar requested the Centre to put the legislation in the Ninth Schedule [to ensure a limited scope of judicial review] of the Constitution. The Patna high court set aside the legislation and the Bihar government promptly went to the Supreme Court to challenge it.”