Nitish feasts on Lalu deserters

PATNA: Ramai Ram, who for years remained the dalit face of RJD until he joined Congress just before the Lok Sabha elections, has finally settled for the ruling JD(U). He formally joined JD(U) along with his supporters in the presence of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar here on Monday.

JD(U) obviously continues to be the beneficiary of these desertions as a number of leaders of late have shown their inclination to break free from the RJD-LJP camp. Several of their leaders are only waiting for their turn to jump to the ruling JD(U) bandwagon.

���Laluji never thought of rewarding me beyond ministership although I played my role in his elevation as the chief minister. He tried to gloss over my contributions. RJD will now be further weakened after my desertion,��� Mr Ram told mediapersons after swearing his allegiance to JD(U).

Mr Ram also attacked LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan who he said was only an ���airy-fairy leader���. In fact, Mr Ram never showed any inhibition to compete with Mr Paswan in a bid to extend his political outreach in the dalit space.
The eight-time MLA, who has been winning successive elections from the Bochaha (SC) assembly seat since 1977, enjoyed uninterrupted run as a minister in RJD governments for 15 years.

The development is a big boost for JD(U), which recently saw another prominent dalit leader, Shyam Razak, from RJD joining the ruling party. In fact, RJD has been struggling to keep its flock together after the mauling it received in the Lok Sabha elections. The desertion of the party leaders from the RJD camp has been haunting Mr Prasad who may have to live with more rebellions in times to come.

The past few months have seen a number of RJD leaders deserting the party. Some of the prominent names include Mahabali Singh, Vijay Krishna, Anirudh Prasad aka Sadhu Yadav, Upendra Prasad Verma, Vijay Singh Yadav, Ganesh Prasad Singh Yadav, Basisth Narain Singh, Bhim Singh, Shyam Razak and Nihora Prasad Yadav. Even from LJP, Sanajay Singh, trusted prot��g�� of Paswan, besides other leaders like Ghulam Rasool Baliavi and Maheshwar Hazari have broken free from the party and are now part of the JD(U).

���Call it a poetic justice for Lalu who when he was at the helm of affairs in Bihar used his influence to break all other political parties. Now, the same nemesis is catching up with him although this time the leaders are joining the JD(U) on their own,��� commented a JD(U) leader.

Even the chief minister acknowledged the fact that leaders belonging to the minority and the dalit communities, and backward class were now joining JD(U). ���The trend had started before the Lok Sabha elections and it is still continuing��� he said.