The Rashtriya Janata Dal on Wednesday asserted that the party was united and it would contest the Assembly poll in 2020 under Tejashwi Yadav’s leadership. “With the electoral defeat we’re down but not out…we’ll introspect and do a booth-wise survey of our defeat…we’ve taken the drubbing as a challenge”, State RJD chief Ram Chandra Purve saidafter the party’s two-day meeting ended.
The RJD had called the meeting of party leaders and legislators to mull over its humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha poll. Out of 20 seats it contested, the RJD couldn’t win even a single seat.
At the meeting, Mr. Tejashwi, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, said the RJD would go to the people and apprise them of the NDA’s dubious tactics.
The party constituted a three-member panel comprising senior party leaders Jagdanand Singh, Abdul Bari Siddiqui and Alok Mehta to interact with party workers and leaders to examine the reasons behind the party’s poor performance in the Lok Sabha poll. The panel will submit its report in two weeks.
Earlier, senior party leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh had said that “the delay in seat-sharing arrangement and uneven distribution of tickets” had led to the party’s defeat. He had also admitted that the “ mahagathbandhan was not united.”
Mr.Singh,who had lost from Vaishali to Lok Janshakti Party candidate Veena Devi, also said the rift between Mr. Tejashwi and Tej Pratap, the two sons of Lalu Prasad, was one of the reasons for the party’s drubbing. He also curtly said that “those who have doubts about Tejashwi’s leadership should quit the RJD and the mahagathbandhan. ” Soon after the results, RJD MLA from Gaighat in Muzaffarpur, Maheshwar Yadav, had demanded Mr. Tejashwi’s resignation as Leader of the Opposition on “moral grounds”.
After the RJD meeting, leaders of the mahagathbandhan reached former CM Rabri Devi’s residence for a meeting. Alliance party leaders Sharad Yadav, Upendra Kushwaha, Mukesh Sahni attended it but no leader from the State Congress came.
“I was not aware of any such meeting…I’ve come to Darbhnaga on urgent work”, State Congress chief Madan Mohan Jha said.
Earlier, some State Congress leaders had called for snapping of ties with the RJD. “The party must get off the crutches it has used for the past three decades…it must work to strengthen its own cadre and support base”, senior State Congress leader Sadanand Singh had told journalists on Tuesday.
Other party leaders like Abdul Jalil Mastan and others too had echoed similar sentiments while, senior party leader and MLC Prem Chandra Mishra said, “whatever party leaders have to say they should say it in the party forum.”
Meanwhile, imprisoned RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav tweeted on Tuesday: “Opposition parties had the common goal to dislodge the BJP but failed to build a national narrative. The result in a particular election can never alter the reality, in as diverse and plural a country as India.”
