Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) in the northeast received a big jolt as five out of seven MLAs from Manipur have joined hands with BJP.

Earlier bulk of the JDU MLAs joined the BJP in Arunachal Pradesh giving a nightmare to Nitish Kumar's party.

Five JDU MLAs merged with the ruling party BJP on Friday, according to a statement from Manipur Legislative Assembly Secretariat.

As per the statement issued by the Legislative Assembly Secretariat, "the Speaker of the Manipur Legislative Assembly is pleased to accept the merger of five JD(U) MLAs with the BJP under the tenth schedule of the Constitution."

These names include Joykishan Singh, Ngursanglur Sanate, Md. Achab Uddin, Thangjam Arunkumar and LM Khaute. The Bharatiya Janata Party secured a majority of 32 seats in the 60-member state Assembly in the recently held Assembly elections, results of which were declared on March 10.

On 25 August 2022, the lone JD(U) MLA From Arunachal Pradesh joined the BJP in the presence of national president JP Nadda and Arunachal CM Pema Khandu.

The latest political developments come weeks after Nitish Kumar dumped the BJP and joined hands with Tejashwi Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress and other parties to govern Bihar.

Lone JDU MLA Techi Kaso also joined BJP, with this now BJP stands at 49 out of 60 Assembly seats (MLA). Out of 9 Corporators of JDU, 8 have joined BJP; now the total number of BJP corporators is 18 out of 20.

Further, out of 18 Zilla Parishad members (ZPM) of JD(U), 17 have joined BJP. Now out of 241 members, BJP has 206 Zilla Parishad members.

In addition, out of 119 Gram Panchayat Members (GPM) of JD(U), more than 100 joined BJP. With this, BJP now has around 6530 out of 8332.

Those aware of the development say that the BJP has decided to hit back at the JD(U) after what transpired in Bihar recently. In 2020 the BJP-JD(U) fought election in an alliance and went on to form the government with Nitish Kumar being given the chief minister's post.

In less than two years' time, Nitish Kumar flipped his choices and in a surprise move, went on to stitch an alliance with RJD and Congress to form a 'Grand Alliance' government in Bihar.

Responding to these developments, Kumar said all the six Manipur JD(U) MLAs were scheduled to come for the meet and were ready till a couple of days ago, but suddenly the merger with the BJP happened. “Is it the Constitutional way? They had all come to Bihar a few months ago. People are watching the behaviour of the BJP. What kind of an approach is this? This means they don’t want any Opposition,” he added.

“It is the character of the BJP now that it doesn’t want any other party to grow on its own strength. We fought on our own and won. Like Arunachal, they have repeated it in Manipur. But the people of India are also watching it and the JD(U) will use the people’s power to show them the mirror in 2024,” JD(U) spokesman Neeraj Kumar said.

Image courtesy: ANI