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Samata, JD-U chasm deepens

Soroor Ahmed in Patna

The Samata Party has slammed the door on the issue of merger with the Janata Dal-United. It also did not rule out the possibility of a friendly fight with the latter in some of the assembly constituencies of Bihar, despite the common enemy Laloo Prasad Yadav. The tone and tenor of the speakers who addressed the workers' meeting of the party held in Patna on Saturday gave enough indication that there is absolutely no scope for rapprochement between the two parties. Some of the speakers were so angry at the new ''converts'' -- to use Union Agriculture Minister Nitish Kumar's phrase -- that for a moment it appeared that the JD-U is the bigger enemy for the Samata than the Rashtriya Janata Dal.

For example, state Dalit Samata chief Rijhan Ram Paswan, without naming Union Telecommunication Minister Ram Bilas Paswan, yelled: "Those who are calling themselves the leaders of dalits would have never entered Parliament without the support of the Samata Party." In a similar tone former Central Bureau of Investigation director N K Singh of the kissa kursi ka fame, said that Union Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav would not have been in the Lok Sabha without the support of the Samata Party.

It was Nitish Kumar who set the ball rolling when he lamented that the loyalty of hardcore partymen was being questioned by some of the new converts who have joined the anti-Laloo camp only recently. He not only blasted the JD-U men, but even came down heavily on his own party's member of Parliament Captain Jay Narayan Nishad, who had asked Defence Minister George Fernandes not to stake claim for the post of the chief of the united party. "We have to confront many guest artistes. But let me tell them that they can leave the party as they are not going to take anybody with them," he warned without naming anyone. The Union minister said that there was a limit to sacrifices and being lenient did not mean that one is weak. "We even temporarily gave up our symbol for the cause of unity, but what have we got in return? Two to three months time was wasted and no formality for the merger was adopted," he regretted.

Both he and Union Minister of State for Railways Digvijay Singh said that they initially agreed to merge their party with the JD-U, though "we were strongly opposed by the rank and file." The Union agriculture minister conceded that the workers had been proved right and the leaders wrong. Almost all the Samata leaders who spoke on the occasion felt that the JD-U leaders had become too big for their boots.

Prabhunath Singh, the MP from Maharajganj, was critical of the party leaders for sacrificing some extremely dedicated workers and candidates to make room for the JD-U candidates in the last Lok Sabha poll. "I squarely blame the leaders for taking such a hasty step of merger. We rejected the genuine claim of old and loyal leaders like Harinder Kumar and Jagannath Chaudhary just for the sake of those who joined our camp recently," he said.

Both he and the other speaker, Akhlaque Ahmed, were critical of the party leadership's decision to give prize posts to the turncoats who had in the past done enough damage to the Samata Party. "Why have those who had been responsible for the murder and harassment of Samata workers got top organisational posts?" Prabhunath asked much to the dismay of state Samata chief Raghunath Jha. The latter was the senior-most leader in the Rabri cabinet till as late as February 1998 and left the RJD only when Laloo denied him a ticket for the Lok Sabha seat.

Saturday's meeting not only revealed the growing chasm between the Samata Party and the JD-U but also exposed the differences among the anti-Laloo forces. Both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samata Party appear to be locked in a struggle to woo leaders and MLAs from each other's camp.

Nitish Kumar hinted at this by saying that the allies had to first make the atmosphere cordial amongst themselves before fighting the RJD. "One must not underestimate the enemy," he said. Without naming the leader of opposition in the state assembly, Sushil Kumar Modi, the Union agriculture minister said that he had repeatedly stated that Modi was in no way fit for the post of the chief minister.

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