Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar Monday trained his guns at his former ally, the BJP over his bete noire Chirag Paswan joining its campaign for by-polls to two assembly seats in the state.
The JD(U) leader sarcastically remarked that Paswan was doing the “right thing” (theek kar raha hai) by coming out in the open in support of BJP.
“Everybody remembers what had happened to us during the last assembly polls,” he said when asked by journalists about Paswan’s announcement here the previous day.
In the 2020 state assembly poll JD(U)’s tally had plummeted to 43 from 71 five years earlier. One of the major factors responsible for its drubbing was the rebellion of Paswan, who then headed the LJP founded by his late father Ram Vilas Paswan.
Vowing to dislodge Kumar from power and help BJP form its own government, though it was fighting the polls as an ally of the chief minister, Paswan had fielded his own candidates, many of them saffron party rebels, in all seats contested by the JD(U).
“I had such a long association with his father, had supported him at critical junctures,” remarked Kumar, indirectly rubbishing Paswan’s repeated charge that the chief minister had been disrespectful towards his late father.
Kumar had proposed that Paswan become the chief minister when in February, 2005, the Bihar assembly poll threw up a hung house and the LJP had won a number of seats that were sizeable enough to help the NDA form the government.
Paswan, who was then a minister in the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre, had, however, balked at the suggestion and President’s rule was imposed in Bihar after the assembly got dissolved on the then Governor Buta Singh’s recommendation.
In the election that followed, NDA got a majority and Kumar went on to make history.
The longest-serving CM, who first broke his alliance with BJP in 2013, and again in August this year, reiterated that he has burnt his bridges with the saffron party, calling the realignment in 2017 a “mistake” (galti ho gayi thi).
Turning towards young RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, who is back as his deputy, the septuagenarian Kumar said “We now have to nurture him” (ab isko badhava dena hai).
The chief minister said that though injuries in a recent mishap were keeping him away from campaigning for the by-polls to Gopalganj and Mokama he is receiving feedback. “The RJD is going to win both seats comfortably”.
He also expressed grief over the bridge collapse at Morbi in Gujarat that killed at least 134 people.
“Such an incident has been unheard of. The government of that state must look into it,” the Bihar chief minister added.
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