BJP says Nitish wanted to be Vice President as war of words heats up

The war of words between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (United) intensified on Wednesday after former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi alleged that chief minister Nitish Kumar quit the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) as his ambition to become the Vice President did not materialise.

The JD(U) dismissed the charge and mocked Sushil Modi as a leader “abandoned by the roadside” by his own party as a “punishment” for “close relations he had with Nitish Kumar”.

Addressing a press conference, Sushil Modi said: “Nitish wanted to become the Vice President. Many JD(U) leaders had approached BJP ministers to see if it is possible.”

Modi’s remarks came a day after Nitish called off his alliance with the BJP to realign with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-led opposition in the state. BJP leaders have accused him of “backstabbing” the party and blamed his prime ministerial ambition for his decision.

“The BJP made him (Nitish) a chief minister five times but he broke the 17-year-old relation twice in a stroke,” Modi said, reminding the JD(U) that voters in 2020 had voted for the NDA in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Had the voters voted in the name of Nitish Kumar, we could have crossed 150 mark and the JD(U) would not have been reduced to 43 seats,” he said.

The new government will fall before completing its term in 2025, Sushil Modi asserted. Nitish will “ditch the RJD and try to split it, taking advantage of RJD boss Lalu Prasad’s illness”, he said.

“We will like to see how the new Bihar government functions with (RJD leader) Tejashwi (Yadav) as de facto chief minister; it will fall before next polls,” he added.

He also cautioned the RJD against Nitish’s “habit of ditching allies”. “He will not be loyal to the RJD as well, and try to break that party, taking advantage of Lalu Prasad’s ill-health..,” he said.

“The JD(U) has accused us of betraying our allies and cited the example of the Shiv Sena. The Sena came apart. And we were not its allies then,” he said, referring to the rebellion in the Sena that saw a change of guard and return of the BJP in Maharashtra to run a coalition government, in June.

Sushil Modi, who has known Nitish and Lalu Prasad for five decades, also alleged the JD(U) leader had insulted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the people of Bihar who had voted for the NDA.

He even refuted JD(U)’s claims of a “conspiracy” hatched through RCP Singh, claiming that the former Union minister had been inducted into the Cabinet (in July 2021) after Nitish’s consent was obtained by Union home minister Amit Shah.

Singh quit the JD(U) on Saturday after the party issued a show-cause notice to him for allegedly amassing huge amounts of property between 2013 and 2019, and not declaring those in his poll affidavit.

JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh mocked Modi as a leader “who has been abandoned by the party” for sharing close ties with the chief minister.

“He has been abandoned by the party and is seeking rehabilitation. We would not like to harm his cause as he is a good friend of Nitish Kumar,” Singh said.

Singh also claimed that it was the BJP, and not Nitish, that betrayed the alliance partners.

“Nitish Kumar is not a backstabber. It is the BJP that betrayed its alliance partners. We have all along respected the coalition principles but the example of Arunachal Pradesh is before everybody. The BJP conspired against the JD(U) and tried to break the party by using one of our former leaders (RCP Singh),” he said.

Nitish in 2020 had accused the BJP of not following the coalition principle after six out of seven JD(U) MLAs had defected to the BJP.

“In 2015, when we had 118 MLAs, we could have formed the government on our own but Nitish decided to give an equal share to the BJP,” he added.

If Bihar has progressed, it is because of chief minister Nitish Kumar’s commitment and vision, Singh asserted.

Nitish, meanwhile, dismissed BJP’s claims that the new government in Bihar will not last its full term and said his former ally “will be back where they were after the 2015 assembly polls”, referring to the time when the NDA secured less than 50 seats in the 243-strong assembly.

Sign on to read the HT ePaper epaper.hindustantimes.com