JD(U) party chief attacks Nitish Kumar; threatens to resign

Rumblings within the ruling Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) in Bihar today surfaced openly, with state party chief Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lalan accusing chief minister Nitish Kumar of behaving like a "dictator", and offering to resign from his post.

"Nitish Kumar is behaving like a dictator... he is ignoring and overlooking genuine party workers and treating the party as his pocket organisation," Singh told PTI.

"I have urged the party's national president, Sharad Yadav to appoint a ceremonial state president by tomorrow to facilitate me to resign from the post on February 1," the Lok Sabha member from Munger said.

Elaborating on the reasons for raising the revolt, Singh charged Kumar of not consulting him while taking decisions during the past four years. Assembly elections in Bihar are due later this year.

"I always come to know about the decisions through newspapers, and if this is my status, I can't permit it. I have no less contributions than others to float the party, and bring it to a state of ruling Bihar fighting the regime of the Lalu-Rabri duo for 15 years," he said.

Singh said, "It will be better for Kumar to appoint a puppet party chief. I don't want to face the ire of grass-root party workers who unnecessarily target me for anything wrong or humiliation done to them.