Ending suspense over who controls the real Janata Dal United, the Election Commission on Friday has recognised the faction led by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s claim over the arrow symbol.

Special Correspondent

The order follows a month-long tussle between the groups led by Kumar and former JD-U chief Sharad Yadav.

“The group led by Nitish Kumar is hereby recognised as the Janata Dal (United) in terms of paragraph-15 of the Symbols Order. Consequently the group led by Nitish Kumar is entitled to use the reserved symbol Arrow of the party as a recognized party in Bihar,” the Election Commission said in its order today.

The order has come after the poll panel conducted the hearing with parties on the petition of lone Guiarat MLA from JDU Chhotubhai Vasava, who is working president of Sharad Yadav faction of JDU.

The faction had approached the Election Commission after Nitish Kumar junked the alliance with the grand alliance of Congress-RJD and JDU in Bihar and joined hands with BJP in July.

Yadav opposed the move and made the claim that his faction of the JDU was the ‘real JDU’.

He later petitioned the EC seeking the Arrow symbol for itself. Nitish Kumar camp filed a counter submission in its favour.

The move comes at a time when both factions of JDU have announced to field candidates in its erstwhile influence pockets in Gujarat assembly polls.

While Sharad faction is seeking to forge alliance with Congress, Nitish faction has decided to contest on its own. The Nitish Kumar faction had this month written to the EC not to allow Arrow symbol to Sharad faction for Gujarat polls.

The EC has also taken note of it saying, “In view of the above urgency in the matter on account of the current general election to the Legislative Assembly of Gujarat, which is already in progress since November 14, the Commission passes the following order in the matter”.