JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav. DH File photo
The Sharad Yadav-led JD(U) faction would explore possibilities of alliance with Congress and the Left to defeat the ruling BJP in Gujarat.
Chhotubhai Vasava, appointed president of the faction replacing Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, said the BJP is on a losing wicket in Gujarat which is gearing up for elections by the end of the year.
“We will ally with Congress as also other parties like the CPI(M) and CPI,” Vasava told a press conference, a day after his appointment at a National Executive meeting organised by the Yadav faction. Vasava claimed that he voted in favour of Ahmed Patel in last month’s Rajya Sabha polls defying Nitish Kumar’s orders to vote for the BJP. His vote allowed Patel to sneak through in a nail biter.
Yadav has been at loggerheads with Kumar after the Bihar Chief Minister broke the grand alliance with RJD and Congress and returned to the NDA fold. Yadav and his supporters refused to endorse Kumar’s move and accused him of going against the party line.
Sources said the faction is in talks with likeminded parties to forge an alliance in Gujarat.
Yadav has been holding discussions at the national level. The party and its allies would also raise the Sardar Sarovar Dam issue which has only helped the business community and had left the tribals and the common people landless and without their livelihood sources.