Patna: BJP’s absence from the Durga Puja event has fuelled the speculation of rift in Bihar’s NDA. Sources claim that the development had irked the JD(U) as well as Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.
On Tuesday, deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar and others had skipped the Durga Puja event in Patna, which was attended by Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and other top political leaders, including Assembly speaker Vijay Kumar Chaudhary and Congress state president Madan Mohan Jha.
Political analysts see the development as an indication of discontent brewing in BJP over the state government’s failure in dealing with flood crisis in Bihar. They pointed at a series of statements by Giriraj Singh, who had blamed Nitish Kumar for his inability to control the flood crisis after heavy rains, last month.
The state unit spokesperson Nikhil Anand, however, dismissed the speculations of discontent in the NDA and said, “It would not be proper to view the absence of our party leaders as a sign of a rift between the NDA allies. The NDA is rock solid and our party is currently focusing on Assembly polls in Maharashtra and Haryana. In Bihar also, the BJP is contesting the by-election in alliance with JD(U)”.
The NDA leaders also claimed that the BJP leadership has asked the party’s firebrand leader Giriraj Singh not to speak against Nitish Kumar and the JD(U).
Through his statement earlier this month, he had heated up the political temperature by saying that, “when a leader of the government gets praised for achievements, he should also face criticism for failures”.
The JD(U) took the statement as a direct attack against Nitish Kumar and sought explanations from the BJP on the issue.
A rift in the NDA had surfaced after the JD(U) recently decided to contest Assembly polls in Jharkhand and Delhi on its own.
Sources claim that JD(U)’s stand on sensitive issues like NRC, Article 370, triple talaq, Ayodhya and Uniform Civil Code may have irked BJP leaders in Bihar.
Sources said that a section led by a few senior state unit BJP leaders have been of the opinion that the party should be given a chance to lead the NDA in Bihar instead of playing as a second fiddle to the regional party like JD(U).
Dalit leader and BJP MLC Sanjay Paswan in a statement earlier had created a flutter in a political circle here by asking Nitish Kumar to step down from his post and hand over the reins of NDA to the BJP in Bihar.
