Nitish Kumar rejigs JD-U organisation

Patna, Jan 21: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who returned as his JD-U's national President, removed a majority of the leaders in the party organisation, especially those considered close to his predecessor Lalan Singh.

Nitish Kumar has formed a new team comprising 22 members and he will head it himself.

Among the 22, veteran party leader K.C. Tyagi has been appointed as personal advisor to Nitish Kumar.

The team also comprises a vice president, a treasurer, 11 general secretaries, 6 secretaries and a national spokesperson.

On the direction of Nitish Kumar, party’s national General Secretary Afaq Ahmed Khan issued the list of new officials where party veteran Vashistha Narayan Singh has been appointed as Vice President.

He replaces Mangnilal Mandal who was close to Lalan Singh.

Alok Kumar Suman will be the national Treasurer and Rajiv Ranjan Singh national spokespersony.

In the new team, Nitish Kumar reduced the number of national general secretaries of the party from 22 during Lalan Singh's tenure to 11 at present.

Mandal will be national General Secretary, along with MP Ramnath Thakur, Sanjay Jha, Ali Ashraf Fatami, Kahkashan Parveen, Afak Alam, Sribhagwan Singh Kushwaha, Ram Sewak Singh, Kapil Harishchandra Patil, and Engineer Sunil Kumar.

The six secretaries are Vidyasagar Nishadh, Rajiv Ranjan Prasad, Anup Patel, Dayanand Rai, Sanjay Kumar, and M Nishar.

Leaders like Harshvardhan Singh, Girdhari Yadav, Santosh Kumar Kushwaha, Chandeshwar Prasad Chandravanshi, former MP Dasai Chaudhary, Gulam Rasool Balyavi, R.P. Mandal, Vijay Kumar Manjhi, Ram Kumar Sharm and former UP MLA Dhananjay Singh were removed as national General Secretaries. They are all said to be close to Lalan Singh.