Patna (Bihar): Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Janta Dal-United (JDU) has named six candidates for the upcoming Jammu and Assembly elections, in a bid to expand its footprint beyond Bihar. The party will announce more candidates for the much-awaited polls in the coming days, JD(U)'s Jammu and Kashmir unit chief, GM Shaheen, told media.
The party's National Spokesperson, Rajiv Ranjan Prasad, said the move to field candidates in Jammu and Kashmir polls was aimed at making the JD(U) a national party. "The party already has an organisation in J&K. The work done by Nitish Kumar in Bihar makes a base for us to contest elections in other states, including J&K," he told ETV Bharat.
J&K Once Had Eight Janata Dal MLAs
In 1996, the Janata Dal, former Prime Minister VP Singh's party, had eight MLAs in Jammu and Kashmir. Its offshoot JD(U) has not contested elections in the union territory. After 23 years, the JD(U) has decided to contest elections in the region. Earlier, the JD(U) had contested assembly elections outside Bihar, including Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Delhi, and Nagaland. The party had already fielded two candidates in the first phase of the polling, scheduled for September 18.
JD(U) eyeing ticketless candidates of other parties:
Political analyst Sunil Pandey said that JD(U) does not have any support base in Jammu and Kashmir. Whatever the support base JD(U) has is in Bihar, he said. "Wherever the party contested elections in other states, they had forfeited their deposits in most of the places except Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh," Pandey said.
According to him, Nitish Kumar is harbouring a dream to make the JD(U) a national party, hence, he is trying his luck in J&K too. "It is an effort from Janata Dal-United that when the leaders of other big parties do not get tickets, it should make them contest elections on its symbol. But till now the party has not been successful in this aspect too," Pandey said.