Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday asserted that there was no problem in the Bihar NDA (National Democratic Alliance) and it would get much more than 200 seats in the October-November 2020 Assembly elections.“Those spreading rumours would get to know about it after the Assembly polls”, he said.
Bihar has 243 Assembly seats.
BJP MLC Sanjay Paswan had said that Mr. Kumar should quit his post for the BJP as he had been the Chief Minister for 15 years. “The BJP too should get at least one chance for its own Chief Minister”, he stated. This stoked speculation of a rift between the two allies.
Apparently, to counter Mr. Paswan’s statement, Deputy Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi tweeted that Mr. Kumar was the “captain of NDA in Bihar and he would remain the captain”.
On Friday, addressing the JD(U)’s State council at Ravindra Bhawan in Patna, Mr. Kumar said, “ Koi gadbad nahi hai Bihar NDA mein…is baar 200 ke bahut aage jayenge ” (there is no problem in the Bihar NDA. It would get much more than 200 seats in the coming Assembly polls). He also appealed to the party leaders to “focus on their work and not to take notice of who says what”.
Mr. Kumar took on the media, saying he knew well who was of what ideology. “ Kaun kis vichardhara ka hai, mujhe acchi tarah se malum hai ”, he said. “You keep on writing against me and I’ll not get perturbed over it…I’ll keep doing my work”, he said.
He also took a dig at the Opposition, saying “what they had been saying before the Lok Sabha poll against me and what happened to them, people know it better”. “How much seat they got?..you all have seen”, he said.
Mr. Kumar congratulated senior party leader Basistha Narayan Singh for being elected the third time as the State party president.
Mr. Singh has been the occupying the post since November 30, 2010.
Other senior JD(U) leaders too congratulated Mr. Singh on the occasion.
