JD (U) Gears to Be BJP’s Linchpin in Delhi Elections

Nitish Kumar Man Friday Sanjay Jha to Host Amit Shah for Saturday Feast

By Manish Anand

New Delhi, January 17: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has cut the stock of the Janata Dal (United) in the Delhi Assembly elections by half. Yet, the JD (U) is going an extra mile to help the BJP win the Assembly elections in the national capital.

The JD (U) working president and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Jha will be showing camaraderie of his party with the BJP on Saturday with a feast of Bihar’s traditional ‘dahi-chura and khichdi’. The JD (U) MLAs from Bihar have also arrived in the national capital.

Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah, sources said, will be attending the Saturday feast with Jha and the JD (U) MLA in the national capital. The political buzz in Patna in the run up to the Makar Sankranti was about Shah coming to Patna to attend a ‘dahi-chura’ feast with the Bihar Chief Minister.

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“Shah will meet the JD (U) MLAs. The BJP MLAs from Bihar will also be attending the function hosted by Jha. This is a very important meeting,” said an informed source.

The JD (U) had contested two Assembly seats in the 2020 Assembly elections in Delhi. The party had cut a sorry figure by polling votes about 20-25 per cent range at the two seats. The BJP has given one seat to the Lok Jan Shakti Party of Union Minister Chirag Paswan.

With two allies from Bihar, the BJP aims to cut into the ‘Purvanchali’ vote base of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the national capital. Jha along with JD (U) leader and Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh are sanguine that their party will pin down Arvind Kejriwal-led outfit for “insulting the people from Bihar”.

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At a press conference at the Jantar Mantar Road office of the JD (U), Singh had gone ballistic against Kejriwal, saying: “We will show his video clip wherein Kejriwal says that the people from Bihar buy a train ticket of ₹500 and come to Delhi for free medical treatment in parts of the national capital”.

The AAP in the last three Assembly elections has shown a strong hold over the ‘Purvanchali (term for people from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh)’ vote base in the national capital. While the Bihar Chief Minister himself stays away from Delhi’s Assembly elections, his two lieutenants – Singh and Jha – are going extra miles to help the BJP in the city polls.

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About The Author

Manish Anand

Manish Anand is a senior journalist with more than two decades of hardcore reporting on beats such as Prime Minister’s Office, Parliament, BJP, Congress, Planning Commission, NITI Aayog, and scores of Union Ministries.

His past has been with The New Indian Express, The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle, and The Statesman.

For about 15 years, Manish was also a regular commentator and host for talks on AIR on foreign affairs.

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