Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, January 9
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had come under scathing attack from its coalition partner Janata Dal United (JDU) in Bihar for the latter’s poor performance in the state polls.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday shared the feelings of his former cabinet colleagues who lost the 2020 assembly elections and claimed, “I come to know about the reality every day on return from campaign-who is with us and who is sabotaging.”
Earlier participating in the state executive committee meeting of the JDU here, former industries minister Jaikumar Singh claimed that he lost the assembly elections because of the BJP and not LJP as propagated by the BJP. The BJP workers sabotaged his prospects, he alleged.
Another former JDU MLA Gogo Singh, who also lost the elections in Gopalganj, also alleged he was defeated due to the conspiracy of the BJP workers. Another former minister also accused the BJP of engineering his defeat.
Speaking at the meeting, Nitish Kumar said he also realised the real ground situation. “Every day in the evening, when I returned from campaign, I could analyse who were working for us and who were engaged in sabotage. I was not interested in becoming the Chief Minister again as JDU got fewer seats compared to 2015 and less than the BJP strength. There was pressure from the BJP to make me Chief Minister again,” he said.
Nitish also said everything was not okay in NDA even before the elections. At least five months before the assembly elections, all arrangements including seat sharing could have been done in the NDA.
The Chief Minister earlier said the cabinet expansion was delayed because of the BJP. “You know, in the past, when I had free hands, I used to expand the cabinet without delay. So far, BJP has not submitted the list of its nominees. Their leaders met us, but did not give the list,” the Chief Minister said.
Nitish said the cabinet would be expanded once the BJP submitted names of its representatives. The Nitish cabinet with 14 ministers was sworn in on November 16.
BJP’s General Secretary in-charge of Bihar, Bhupinder Yadav and state President Sanjay Jaiswal had called on the Chief Minister on Thursday evening after their meeting with the newly appointed JDU National President R C P Singh. The Chief Minister said the BJP leaders met him, but cabinet expansion was not discussed.
Nitish Kumar commented, “I also read about the news of possible cabinet expansion in newspapers only.”
After changing the National Party President, JDU today decided to remove Bashistha Narain Singh as state JDU president and inducted the former social welfare minister, Ramsewak Singh in his place. R C P Singh, the new national president is Kurmi and Ramsewak Singh is Kushwaha, both from OBC community. Bashistha was from the upper caste-Rajput. He has been changed because of old age, claimed the party leaders.
Meanwhile, the BJP started a two days training camp for the district level leaders at Rajgir. State BJP President Sanjay Jaiswal, reacted to the charge of the JDU leaders and claimed “everything is okay in the NDA.”
