Chief Minister Nitish Kumar along with National President of the party's parliamentary board Upendra Kushwaha, state presidents of various states, national office bearers, national council members, MPs, ministers of the Bihar Government and MLAs participated in the meeting chaired by the party's national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan.
"The meeting of the National Council of Janata Dal-United was held under the chairmanship of the National President of the party, Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Babu, in the Karpuri auditorium located in the Bihar State JD(U) office,", news agency ANI quoted a JD(U) official as saying.
Earlier, five of the six JD(U) MLAs in Manipur left the party and joined the BJP in the presence of BJP President JP Nadda.
Speaking on the issue, CM Nitish Kumar said, "When we parted ways from NDA, all our six Manipur MLAs came and met us. They assured us that they were with JDU. We need to think about what is going on. They are breaking away the MLAs from the parties, is it constitutional?,"
Meanwhile, Rajiv Ranjan Singh alleged BJP did in Manipur what it had "previously attempted in Delhi, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra". He added, "Our MLAs in Manipur had defeated BJP candidates at the hustings. Ditto in Arunachal Pradesh where our MLAs were poached while we were still in NDA,"
In the meeting, JD(U) accused the ruling BJP of having "authoritarian" tendencies and stoking a "communal frenzy" in the country while passing 2 resolutions. One of the resolutions said, the country is looking for an alternative to the BJP and asked all opposition parties to sink their differences and unite.
CM Nitish Kumar while addressing the gathering also said, If all opposition parties fight unitedly, the BJP tally will be confined to 50 seats claiming his only goal is to work for uniting the Opposition to unseat the saffron party from power.
With inputs from agencies
