After Lok Janshakti Party leader Chirag Paswan, now Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday blamed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for engineering a split in the LJP. Mr. Yadav told Mr. Paswan that “time has come to take a political decision for future.”
“Everyone knows who engineered a split in the LJP. Nitish Kumar is directly responsible for it. He was also involved in breaking the LJP in 2005, 2010 an 2020,” Mr. Yadav told media persons in Patna. Mr. Yadav was in Delhi to see his ailing father and RJD chief Lalu Prasad who is undergoing medical assistance at his elder daughter Misa Bharti’s residence after getting bail from the Jharkhand High Court in multi-crore fodder scam cases.
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Mr. Yadav said, “It is time for Chirag Bhai to take a political decision for future. It’s up to him what would he do but the time has come for him to leave those persons having bunch of thoughts,” he said.
‘High unemployment’
Mr. Yadav also took on the Bihar Chief Minister and said, “he [Mr. Kumar] is engaged in sabotaging a political party, instead of working for the development of Bihar. The people of Bihar will be benefited, if he does just the opposite,” he said. “Unemployment in the State is at all-time high and fuel prices are skyrocketing but the Chief Minister behaves like an innocent person as he has no idea of inflation and price rise of commodities,” he alleged, adding, “Mr. Kumar is trying to destroy Bihar in his remaining life”.
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When asked why he has been out of Bihar for so long, Mr. Yadav retorted, “besides being a politician, I am a son also and my father is not keeping well these days. So, I was with him in Delhi to look after him”. Mr. Yadav said his father would come to Patna soon.
Earlier, Mr. Paswan had blamed Mr. Kumar for splitting his party. “Nitish Kumar was directly involved in making a split in the LJP as he has been doing it earlier also,” Mr. Paswan wrote in his letter to party workers after his uncle and Hajipur MP Pashupati Kumar Paras staged a coup along with four other party MPs , out of total six, and was elected unopposed as LJP president thereafter. Mr. Paras later announced that he would continue to support the NDA and be a part of it. Speculations are rife that he may join the Union Cabinet in its likely expansion before the monsoon session of Parliament.
Nitish denies charge
However, on his recent visit to Delhi, Mr. Kumar rebutted the allegations that his party had a role in splitting the LJP. “Whatever is happening is their [LJP’s] internal matter. We have no role in it. I do not know why they’re taking my name for it. I believe they get publicity while taking my name”, Mr. Kumar told media persons. His Delhi visit comes amid speculation that he would meet BJP leaders and the Prime Minister to hand over names of his party leaders who would be included in the likely expansion of the Union Cabinet. Mr. Kumar, though, denied it and said he had come to Delhi for “eye check-up and nothing else”.
