In a setback for the Congress in Bihar, Shubhanand Mukesh, whose late father Sadanand Singh was a party stalwart, on Sunday joined Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) along with a large number of supporters. Mukesh was inducted into the JD(U) by national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan in a grand ceremony inside the sprawling Sri Krishna Memorial Hall here.
The development came barely two months after former state Congress president Sadanand Singh breathed his last. Current Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) chief Madan Mohan Jha sought to shed light on the switchover, asserting that Mukesh attributed his position to his father and had no political achievements of his own.
Notably, in the assembly elections last year, Mukesh had contested from Kahalgaon on a Congress ticket but failed to retain the seat for the party, which his father had represented for a record eight times. When Sadanand Singh was on his deathbed, Mukesh accused the Congress leadership of showing apathy towards his father, who was a former Speaker of the Assembly and leader of the Congress Legislature Party.
The cross over again sheds light on the poor condition of the Congress in Bihar, which it ruled till 1990, but where it has become a costly force. The grand old party was also recently dumped by its domineering ally Lalu Prasad’s RJD. At least three former BPCC presidents have joined other parties in the past decade.
These include minister Ashok Choudhary, who was present at the function where Mukesh joined the JD(U). Other former state Congress chiefs who have jumped are Mehboob Ali Qaiser, who is serving his second term as LJP MP from Khagaria, and Ram Jatan Sinha, who has been a staunch critic of Sadanand Singh and is now one of the leaders of his party. Trying to find the feet. Brief ties with JD(U).
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