On a day when Nitish Kumar skipped the NITI Aayog meeting, his party put the BJP on notice over their increasingly fractious alliance.
The political temperature in Bihar seems to be rising up with the friction between the and BJP and its ally JD(U) increasing and the latter’s chief Nitish Kumar calling a meeting of all party MPs and MLAs on Tuesday.
On a day when Kumar skipped the NITI Aayog meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi citing post-COVID debility, but attended a couple of events in Patna, his party put the BJP on notice over their increasingly fractious alliance.
Claiming “two conspiracies” against Kumar in recent times, JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh a.k.a Lalan Singh said the question of whether the two parties would contest together in the coming elections was far from settled.
“Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Anything can happen to me tomorrow. Why (talk about) 2024 (Lok Sabha polls), ask about 2029?” said Singh.
Singh also made it clear that it will not join the Union council of ministers again, but rebuffed speculations of a rift with ally BJP asserting “all is well”.
He, however, defended a statement he made last week blaming a “conspiracy” for the JD(U)'s poor show in the 2020 assembly polls and reacting to BJP's promise of contesting the next Lok Sabha and Assembly elections under Nitish Kumar's leadership with a cryptic remark "kal kisne dekha hai" (who has seen tomorrow).
Asked about the “conspiracy”, he referred to “Chirag model”, an allusion to the then LJP chief's rebellion, and claimed “the model was again at work, we will reveal more about it at a later stage”.
While Kumar has called a party meeting on Tuesday, there are rumours that the opposition RJD has commanded its MLAs to remain in Patna for “the next few days” triggering speculations in a section of the media here that the state was set to witness a momentous political development.
Kumar is said to be upset with the BJP-led central government’s offer of token representation to allies as Union ministers. Kumar's party had denied another Rajya Sabha berth last month to his former JD(U) colleague RCP Singh, who had taken a spot in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet last year without consulting Mr Kumar. Singh quit the party on Sunday following his long run-in with Kumar.
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 "Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi - File Photo")
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