New Delhi: At a time when the Shiv Sena is playing hardball with the BJP over the government formation in Maharashtra, another of the party’s allies, the Janata Dal (United), also upped the ante on Wednesday by pushing for “proportional representation” for itself in the Union Cabinet.
The party also said that it would contest the coming Assembly polls in Delhi and Jharkhand on its own wherever it has pockets of strength.
Reminding the BJP that Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had given the saffron party proportionate representation in the state government, JD(U) national spokesperson K.C. Tyagi said that if Prime Minister Narendra Modi or BJP president Amit Shah would take an initiative for the party’s inclusion in the Union Cabinet, they would welcome the move. “If Mr Modi and Mr Shah take an initiative for the JD(U)’s proportionate representation in the government, we will welcome it,” he said, adding adequate representation of the JD(U) would make Bihar more representative in the Union government and it would be socially more broad-based and cohesive.
The former Rajya Sabha MP was addressing the media after Mr Kumar was re-elected the JD(U) president for the next three years at its national council in the capital.
After its massive victory in the Lok Sabha polls in May this year, the BJP had offered one ministry to each of its allies. However, the JD(U) had been stuck on at least three ministerial berths.
Mr Tyagi said that the JD(U) was not inducted in the first Modi government as well though it had inducted BJP leaders in the state government after exiting the Congress-RJD Grand Alliance in 2017. He, however, added that his party was imposing no condition on the BJP over the issue.
He also noted that the mandate of the 2015 Bihar Assembly polls was “against” the BJP but Mr Kumar conceded to it the post of deputy chief minister besides sharing ministerial berths.
However, he was quick to add that was no “confusion” in his party’s alliance with the BJP after Mr Shah’s recent statement that the NDA would fight the 2020 Assembly polls in Bihar under Mr Kumar’s leadership.
