RJD national executive meeting in Patna on January 25; cadres demand 'working president'

Patna: Picking up the threads from the drubbing in last year's Bihar assembly polls, the Rashtriya Janata Dal has convened a meeting of its national executive next week when "crucial leadership decisions" are likely to be taken.

According to a letter issued by Bhola Yadav, the RJD's national general secretary and a confidant of party president Lalu Prasad, the meeting will be held at a city hotel on January 25.

"Yes, the national executive meeting will be held on January 25. Besides Lalu ji, all top leaders are expected to be in attendance. Issues that are deemed important by the party leadership may be taken up for discussion," RJD spokesperson Chitaranjan Gagan told PTI.

Although party leaders, wary of the infight within the proverbial "first family" of the RJD, were tight-lipped, those speaking on condition of anonymity said a decision might be taken on appointing a "working national president".

Prasad, who had founded the RJD in 1997, splitting the Janata Dal, has held the top party post since the party's inception. While his supremacy remains undisputed, party sources feel that in view of the octogenarian's poor health, there needs to be a second line of leadership for handling day-to-day affairs in the organisation.

According to them, the front-runner for the post is Tejashwi Yadav, a former deputy chief minister and, currently, the leader of the opposition, who is Prasad's younger son and heir apparent.

However, the sources indicated that the party's dismal show in the recently held assembly polls, which saw the RJD's tally crash to 25 from 75 five years earlier, may have allowed sibling rivalry to come to the surface.

They said a section of RJD workers are of the opinion that the post should go to Misa Bharti, the eldest daughter of Prasad, who is currently the Lok Sabha MP from Pataliputra.

"It is not a question of lack of trust in Tejashwi Yadav's leadership. The fact is, the BJP-led NDA, our rival, has for long been trying to paint RJD as a patriarchal organisation in which women are denied their due," a party leader said.

"The outbursts of Rohini Acharya after the poll results have made matters worse. Just look at how all leaders of the BJP and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) had latched on to the opportunity to accuse Lalu ji of giving a raw deal to his daughters," he added.

Notably, Acharya who is based in Singapore, had come to Bihar for the poll campaign and stormed out of her parents' home a couple of days after results came out alleging that abuses were hurled at her and a slipper was flung to hit her when she questioned the role played by a couple of close aides of Tejashwi, including Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Yadav, in the RJD's poor show.

Another RJD leader said, "We cannot lose sight of the fact that despite promises like 'Mai Bahin Samman Yojana' announced by Tejashwi Yadav, women of the state ended up voting for the ruling NDA in droves as the Nitish Kumar opened its coffers for them, disbursing Rs 10,000 to more than one crore women, a process that continued even when model code of conduct was in force."

"Nobody is disputing that Tejashwi Yadav, who has been our face in the past couple of assembly polls, would be the chief minister when the RJD is in a position to form a government in Bihar. But right now, we need to formulate an effective strategy to counter the NDA, which has built a narrative, charging us with having ushered in 'jungle raj' while in power, which may have frightened women relatively more than their male counterparts," another RJD functionary said.

Party sources also said that another topic of discussion may be the replacement of Mangani Lal Mandal as the state president. Mandal, a party hopper, was with the JD(U) till a few years ago and his return to the RJD failed to effectively cut into the EBC (extremely backward classes) votes.