Two days after Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that all NDA-ruled states in India will implement the UCC, ally Janata Dal United is preparing to tread tricky ground – how to make its guarded position on the Uniform Civil Code known without ruffling feathers within the National Democratic Alliance.On Friday, the Janata Dal (United) will hold a day-long orientation programme for its lawmakers. The event is expected to see several senior leaders, including party supremo Nitish Kumar, national working president Sanjay Kumar Jha, Ministers Bijendra Prasad Yadav and Vijay Kumar Choudhary, legislature party leader Shravan Kumar, and Health Minister Nishant Kumar, speak.For the party, the event aims to do several things at once: reinforce former Nitish Kumar’s legacy, signal a growing role for his son and Health Minister Nishant Kumar, and maybe even articulate its nuanced stance against the UCC, a proposed regime with which the party has long had a complex relationship.This comes days after Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) will be introduced across all 21 BJP- and NDA-ruled states before the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. For the JD(U), whose position on the UCC has never been outright rejection but conditional acceptance based on “mutual consensus”, the announcement brings a conundrum: how to make its guarded position known without upsetting alliance dynamics.Read | Amit Shah’s Uniform Civil Code plan hits a bump in BiharSignificantly, the JD(U)’s position on the UCC has historically been more nuanced than outright opposition. In 2017, when the Law Commission sought views on the issue, the party, under Nitish Kumar, said it was not opposed to a UCC in principle but argued that it should be preceded by wide consultation and consensus. The party reiterated this position in 2023-24.However, over the last few weeks, as the buzz around the UCC grew, that position sharpened, with several JD(U) leaders saying that while the party may not oppose the UCC at the national level, it should not be implemented in Bihar alone.According to the state caste survey, Muslims make up 17.7% of Bihar’s population, totalling approximately 2.31 crore out of the state’s 13.07 crore residents. According to data from the CSDS-Lokniti, 12% of Bihar’s Muslim voters voted for the NDA alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.Story continues below this adRead | Why Bihar wants the Farakka treaty scrapped — and why it puts Centre in a bindSince the announcement, some party leaders, such as Sanjay Jha and Vijay Kumar Choudhary, have reacted cautiously: while the former said JD(U) leaders would soon meet Shah to discuss the issue, the latter said the party would first study the actual legislation and that there was “no reason to make haste”.But some senior leaders, such as Nalanda MP Kaushlendra Kumar, have broken ranks with the official line, stating Thursday: “UCC will not be implemented in Bihar.”The Nalanda MP’s statement is being viewed as an expression of the JD(U)’s underlying opposition to the UCC, beyond its official posture for public consumption. A senior leader admits that the UCC remains a tough call for the JD(U).“It’s true we’re not reiterating what we previously submitted to the Law Commission of India, but a section of the party is unhappy with our ambivalence. What the Nalanda MP said on the UCC might not be officially validated, but it cannot be dismissed outright either,” the leader said.Story continues below this adMeanwhile, another senior leader said it was uncertain “if the party will directly discuss tricky and controversial matters during the orientation programme; there is an underlying message sent to the grassroots through such functions and peripheral discussions”.“The party has now unanimously agreed to gravitate around Nishant Kumar. We are also focused on building momentum around Nitish Kumar’s legacy in governance and social engineering,” this leader said.JD(U) national spokesperson Rajiv Ranjan Prasad too remained unclear if UCC would be a topic of discussion, telling The Indian Express instead: “PRS Legislative Research is conducting the one-day programme to educate our lawmakers on legislative processes and help them raise constituency issues more effectively”.