The chief minister joked, “The meeting is an annual affair,” but he did not fully address these questions, citing his lack of time. It’s nothing special; it’s just usual.”
Dispelling rumours of discord inside his party, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar declared on Thursday that the JD(U)’s two-day conclave in Delhi was a “normal” and “annual” event with “nothing extraordinary” about it. The JD(U) supreme leader briefly paused when journalists asked him about rumours that had been circulating for the previous few days before departing for the national capital, where a meeting of the party’s national office bearers will be followed by meetings of the national executive and national council on FridayThe JD(U) supreme leader paused briefly when journalists asked him about rumours that had been circulating for the previous few days before departing for the national capital, where the party’s national office bearers will meet later in the day and meetings of the national executive and national council will follow on Friday
Predominantly, the rumours have focused on JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh ‘Lalan’s’ upcoming departure due to his claimed closeness to ally RJD at the price of his party allegiance. According to certain media outlets, Kumar was even preparing an about-turn after leaving the BJP in August of last year.
The chief minister joked, “The meeting is an annual affair,” but he did not fully address these questions, citing his lack of time. There is nothing unusual about that; it is just regular.” The RJD president Lalu Prasad’s son and heir apparent, Tejashwi Yadav, was there when the septuagenarian made his remarks. Tejashwi had accompanied his boss to a government celebration hosted here on the occasion of the late BJP politician Arun Jaitley’s birth anniversary.
Though he severed his connection with the BJP, Kumar, who had been an ally of Jaitley and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has been transparent about the “personal” affinity he felt for them and the official functions that are still associated with them. Yadav has reconciled with his boss’s affection for the aforementioned late leaders, despite his party’s well-known bitter rivalry with the BJP.
The RJD leader lashed back, saying, “It is all the work of a BJP-inclined media which is at work whenever our government in the state achieves something historic,” when journalists questioned him about the dispute.
Yadav went on, “When our government performed the caste survey and increased the quotas for the impoverished castes, the rumour mill was in full swing. The cabinet’s approval of over 3.5 lakh contractual teachers’ government employee status gives us yet another feather in our cap. The Deputy Chief Minister expressed regret over the persistent allegations regarding the JD(U) even after several ministers who were also top leaders of the party vehemently denied them.
What exactly makes a party based in Bihar hosting its national executive and national council sessions in Delhi unique, I wonder? Had RJD not acted in the same manner the previous year, Yadav questioned.
In Bihar, where the governing coalition of the state is composed of five of its constituents—the JD(U), RJD, Congress, and three Left parties—he further asserted that the INDIA alliance will have no trouble settling on seat-sharing arrangements. Shortly after, state BJP president Samrat Choudhary also showed up at Arun Jaitley’s memorial and announced that his party was “closed for Nitish Kumar.”
He went on to say “We have no interest in the rumblings in the JD(U)” and maintained that “the BJP is focused on winning the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and the Bihar assembly elections due in 2025” .
