JD(U) office bearers to meet tomorrow, discuss future strategy

After the drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls in Bihar, Janata Dal (United) officer bearers will meet in the national capital tomorrow to discuss their future political strategy.
The meeting to be chaired by party President Sharad Yadav will be attended by office-bearers from various states including Bihar, the only province in which the party has a government.
From Bihar, Rajya Sabha MP R C P Singh, ministers in the state government Shyam Razak and Bheem Singh and Maulana Ghulam Rasool Balyavi are among the office-bearers, JD (U) general secretary Javed Raza said.
He said the meeting will review the performance of the party in Lok Sabha elections and deliberate future plans of the party for upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana this year and Bihar and Jharkhand next year.

Besides the odd 20 office bearers including general secretaries and Vice Presidents of the party, the heads of JDU's Youth and Student wings will also attend the meeting.
Nitish Kumar, Modi's arch-rival who had served as the Chief Minister of Bihar for the last nine years, stepped down on May 17 from his post following the drubbing of his party at the hands of the BJP-led NDA, which walked away with 31 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Jitan Ram Manjhi, a Mahadalit leader succeeded Kumar as the Bihar Chief Minister, whose government was also supported by Kumar's arch-rival Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janta Dal.

JD(U), which had won 20 seats in the 2009 elections, was reduced to a mere two MPs this time while the former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD won four seats. Congress bagged two seats and NCP had to be content with one.
Kumar had walked out of NDA and ended JD(U)'s 17-year-old relationship with BJP in June last year in protest against the elevation of Modi as BJP's prime ministerial candidate.
BJP, which had won 12 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar in 2009 after partnering with Nitish Kumar's JD(U), increased its tally in the state to 22 this time.