In a tweet in Hindi, Sushil Kumar Modi said, “After Arunachal, Manipur is also JDU free. Very soon Laluji will make Bihar also JDU free.”
New Delhi: A spat broke out between former allies Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United (JDU) and the BJP a day after five of the six JDU MLAs joined the ruling BJP in Manipur.
Sushil Kumar Modi, who was a long time deputy chief minister of Bihar when the JDU and BJP were a part of the alliance government, taunted Kumar over his party’s MLAs switching sides. He also said that JDU will soon collapse even in Bihar.
In a tweet in Hindi, Modi said, “After Arunachal, Manipur is also JDU free. Very soon Laluji will make Bihar also JDU free.”
Hitting back, Kumar’s close aide and JDU national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh asked Modi not to “daydream” and also said that the BJP would be wiped out in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Singh also accused the BJP of not adhering to the coalition “dharma” in Arunachal Pradesh, where all seven of its MLAs have now merged with the ruling party and pointed out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to hold 42 rallies to win 53 seats in Manipur in 2015.
In a tweet in Hindi, Singh said, “Want to remind you that both in Arunachal and Manipur, JD(U) won seats by defeating @BJP4India. So don’t daydream of liberation from JD(U). Was what happened in Arunachal Pradesh because of your adherence to the alliance commitment?”
In a separate tweet, Singh said, “…and once again in Manipur @BJP4India’s moral conduct is in front of everyone. You must remember that in 2015, the Prime Minister held 42 meetings, only then 53 seats could be won. In 2024, the country will be free from jumlebaajs….just wait.”
Nitish’s move to dump the BJP had come amid an ongoing rift between JDU and BJP, with leaders of both the parties openly criticising each other on public forums. In fact, some time back, Nitish Kumar had said that although the Centre had refused to conduct a caste census, in Bihar, the counting of castes would take place. Tejashwi Yadav had backed the Chief Minister fully on this.
Things became worse when Nitish Kumar came to know that Union Home Minister Amit Shah was allegedly trying to break away JDU MLAs and induct them in BJP’s folds. Tension scaled up in ruling coalition in Bihar on Sunday as Chief Minister Nitish Kumar called a meeting of all MPs and MLAs of Janata Dal (United) on Tuesday. The rift between the BJP and JDU comes days after the central government offered minimum representation of JD(U) MPs as Union ministers. The controversy related to RCP Singh has also led to a friction within the alliance as several JD(U) leaders directly attacked the BJP.
