In a setback to the Congress in Bihar, Shubhanand Mukesh, whose late father Sadanand Singh was a party heavyweight, on Sunday crossed over to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) along with a large number of supporters.
Mr. Mukesh was inducted into the JD(U) by national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan at a glittering ceremony inside the sprawling Shri Krishna Memorial Hall here.
The development came barely two months after Sadanand Singh, a former State Congress president, breathed his last.
The current Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) chief, Madan Mohan Jha, sought to make light of the switchover, stressing that Mr. Mukesh owed his standing to his father and did not have any political accomplishments of his own.
Notably, in the Assembly polls last year, Mr. Mukesh fought on a Congress ticket from Kahalgaon but failed to retain for the party a seat his father had represented for a record eight terms.
