JD(U) submits members' affidavits in Nitish Kumar's support to EC

New Delhi: A JD(U) delegation on Friday submitted affidavits of an "overwhelming" number of the party's elected members and office-bearers in support of Nitish Kumar's leadership to the Election Commission (EC) and urged it to reject the claims of the Sharad Yadav faction over the party's poll symbol.

JD(U) leaders, including its parliamentary party leader in the Rajya Sabha R C P Singh and secretary general K C Tyagi, urged the EC to take an early decision on the matter.

Tyagi accused the Yadav faction of deliberately trying to drag the matter to the commission, so as to use it as a "pretext" to ask the Rajya Sabha chairperson not to act on the JD(U)'s application to disqualify the rebel leader from the House for his "anti-party" activities.

"We have submitted the affidavits of all the 71 party MLAs, all the 30 MLCs, both the Lok Sabha members and seven of the 10 Rajya Sabha members of the party, supporting the leadership of Nitish Kumar," Tyagi said.

Of the 10 JD(U) members in the Upper House of Parliament, M M Veerendra Kumar has been maintaining a distance from both the Kumar and Yadav factions, while Ali Anwar Ansari has sided with Yadav.

Tyagi told PTI that the affidavits also included those of the 16 central office-bearers of the party out of 20, 16 state presidents and 143 national council members out of 180.

"Almost all the elected members and an overwhelming majority of office-bearers are with us. Sharad Yadav or those supporting his claim that he represents the real JD(U) have no locus standing. They are merely some individuals," he said.

Tyagi added that Yadav had urged the Rajya Sabha chairman to defer the decision on the JD(U)'s application to annul his membership because the EC was yet to take a decision as to which of the rival factions represented the "real" party.

He said while the Yadav faction was yet to furnish any proof that it represented the "real" JD(U), they had submitted "evidence" of their support to the poll watchdog.

Yadav, a former JD(U) president, had voiced his opposition to Bihar Chief Minister Kumar, after the latter dumped the RJD and Congress to join hands with the BJP to form government in that state.

He had also claimed that he represented the "real" JD(U) and moved the EC, staking a claim over the party's poll symbol.