Daman and Diu: Blow to Nitish Kumar as 15 JD(U) panchayat members join BJP

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) delivered yet another blow to Janata Dal-United (JDU) as the Daman and Diu unit of Nitish Kumar’s party merged with the saffron party on Monday.

“15 out of 17 district panchayat members of JDU of Daman and Diu and the entire unit of state JDU joined the BJP today against Nitish Kumar’s decision to leave the BJP which had given impetus to development in Bihar and to choose the ‘Bahubali’, corrupt and a dynastic party,” BJP said in a tweet on Monday.

Notably, a few days ago, a bulk of JDU MLAs in Arunachal Pradesh joined the saffron party and very recently 5 out of 7 MLAs from Manipur embraced the BJP.

Five Janata Dal (United) MLAs merged with the ruling party BJP last week in the presence of BJP party president J.P Nadda.

According to a statement from Manipur Legislative Assembly Secretariat, Kh. Joykishan Singh, Ngursanglur Sanate, Md Achab Uddin, Thangjam Arunkumar and LM Khaute merged with the ruling party BJP.

“The Speaker of the Manipur Legislative Assembly is pleased to accept the merger of five JD(U) MLAs with the BJP under the tenth schedule of the Constitution,” the Legislative Assembly Secretariat had then said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party secured a majority of 32 seats in the 60-member state Assembly in the recently held Assembly elections, results of which were declared on March 10.

On 25 August 2022, the lone JDU MLA from Arunachal Pradesh joined the saffron party in the presence of national president JP Nadda and Arunachal CM Pema Khandu.

BJP stands at 49 out of 60 Assembly seats (MLA) with the merger of lone JDU MLA Techi Kaso with BJP. Out of 9 Corporators of JDU, 8 have joined BJP; now total BJP corporators is 18 out of 20.

Further17 out of 18 Zilla Parishad Members (ZPM) of JDU joined BJP. Now out of 241 ZPM, BJP is with 206 ZPM.

In addition, out of 119 Gram Panchayat Members (GPM) of JDU, more than 100 joined BJP and with this BJP GPM are around 6,530 out of 8,332 GPM.

This comes at a time when Nitish Kumar met a few leaders in Patna and Delhi to garner support against the Modi-led NDA.

Those aware of the development say that the BJP has decided to hit back at the JDU after what transpired in Bihar recently.

Recently, Nitish Kumar had broken away from the BJP and formed a government with the RJD and other parties earlier this month. The Chief Minister and his deputy – RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav – took oath on August 10.

The Bihar Grand Alliance has a combined strength of 163. Its effective strength climbed to 164 after Independent MLA Sumit Kumar Singh extended its support to Nitish Kumar.