Saryu Roy and Nitish Kumar: Saryu Roy has been a friend of JDU chief Nitish Kumar since college days. Recently he met Nitish Kumar in Patna and after that he said that he will work together with Nitish Kumar’s party.
Jharkhand Politics: After emerging as the third largest constituent party of NDA after the Lok Sabha elections, the ambition of Nitish Kumar’s party JDU has also increased. JDU has 12 MPs in the Lok Sabha.
The party could not get special state status for Bihar, but after getting a good package for the state from the Center in the budget, the party’s spirits are high and it now wants to move towards new directions.
Assembly elections are in Bihar in 2025, but before that elections are to be held in neighboring Jharkhand at the end of this year and the party has decided to fight strongly there. A proposal to this effect was passed in the JDU National Working Committee meeting held in Delhi in the last week of June.
Therefore, the party has now made a political move to strengthen its base in Jharkhand. Former minister of Jharkhand government and independent MLA from Jamshedpur East seat Saryu Rai joined Janata Dal United (JDU) on Sunday. JDU’s national working president and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Kumar Jha gave him party membership in Patna.
Saryu Rai runs a party called Bharatiya Jan Morcha. It is believed that this party will formally merge with JDU in the next few days. Saryu Rai’s joining JDU just before the assembly elections and the possible merger of his party is being considered an important development in the state politics.
When Raghuvar Das cut his ticket,
Saryu Rai, who came out of the RSS ‘Pathshala’, was among the top BJP leaders in Jharkhand-Bihar till the 2019 Jharkhand assembly elections.
He was also a minister in the Raghuvar Das-led government in the state, but there were deep differences between the two. The result was that Raghuvar Das cut Saryu Rai’s assembly ticket. After this, Saryu Rai rebelled against the BJP and contested as an independent against Raghuvar Das and defeated him.
Rai’s return to BJP, but now he has joined Janata Dal United. Saryu Rai has been a friend of JDU chief Nitish Kumar since college days. Recently, he met Nitish Kumar in Patna and after that he said that he will work together with Nitish Kumar’s party.
After his joining JDU on Sunday, the party’s national working president Sanjay Kumar Jha wrote on the social media platform X, “Welcome to the JDU family. Senior Jharkhand leader and former minister, Jamshedpur East MLA Saryu Rai ji was given JDU membership.
He has had a personal relationship with JDU national president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar ji for many decades. I am confident that Saryu Rai ji’s arrival will strengthen the party in Jharkhand.”
It is worth noting that Nitish Kumar’s party’s support base in Jharkhand has been continuously declining in the last one and a half decade. Now Saryu Rai can become the leader of Nitish’s campaign to regain the lost ground of JDU in Jharkhand.