Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Thursday lashed out at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for abandoning the grand-alliance and forming a government with the BJP, terming it a “betrayal of the people of Bihar.”
Ms. Mayawati said the people of Bihar had voted against the “Modi wave” and handed a full-majority to the “secular” parties. That mandate should have been honoured for its full term of five years, she said here in an official statement.
The four-time former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister said the political developments in Bihar were “not good signs” for democracy in the country.
She alleged that the regular "misuse of the state machinery for power" by the "power hungry top leadership of BJP" had become a threat to democracy.
“The turn of events in Manipur and Goa, and now Bihar, are evidence that under the Modi government the future of democracy is under threat,” Ms. Mayawati said.
She hit out at the BJP for “running an open campaign to prove its opponents corrupt” in order to divert people's attention from its failures, mistakes and corruption.
This is “not just highly condemnable but also a threat to democracy,” Ms. Mayawati said, appealing citizens across the country to step forward and save democracy from becoming weak.
Though there has been no official response to the quick political developments in Bihar from the Samajwadi Party, its president Akhilesh Yadav took to Twitter on Thursday to provide a hint of what he thought.
Mr. Yadav tweeted two lines from a famous Hindi song from 1965 Bollywood film 'Jab Jab Phool Khile .' The film stars Shashi Kapoor and Nanda.
The former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister tweeted in Hindi font: "Na na karke pyar tumhi se kar baithe. Karna tha inkar magar ikrar tumhi se kar baithe. Bihar Today."
In the song, the two actors talk about eventually falling in love despite their initial denials and assertions that they would not fall for each other.
While UP CM Yogi Adityanath congratulated Mr. Kumar and Sushil Modi (deputy CM Bihar), UP Health Minister Sidharthnath Singh said the "homecoming" of the JDU chief would usher in "ache din" for Bihar.
