By Manish Anand
New Delhi, February 23: Within days of the formation of the new government in Bihar with Nitish Kumar as Chief Minister, a core group meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wore a somber look. The meeting was also attended by the BJP national general secretary Vinod Tawde, but the members of the saffron outfit exhibited no ‘josh’ at wresting power in Patna.
Weeks have gone by since the formation of the new government, but the Bihar Chief Minister has not expanded his Cabinet. His fast-paced meeting in the national capital with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah, and the BJP president J P Nadda had passed off as a non-news event for the media.
When pressed on expansion of his Cabinet, Kumar boasted of smiles with folded hands to the television reporters outside the residence of Nadda as his cavalcade spade away. Now, his former deputy, Tejashwi Yadav, who has hit the campaign trail in an anticipation of a simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and the Bihar Assembly, argues that “all is not well” in the BJP-JD (U) alliance.
Speaking at a public meeting, Yadav said: “Nitish ji wants to dissolve the assembly as per the alliance deal with NDA. Almost a month has passed but the cabinet expansion has not taken place in Bihar. The gap of distrust between BJP-JD (U) has widened.”
He further claimed that “there is no such thing as governance in Bihar now because the head of the number three party has taken oath thrice in the last three years. Everyone and everything is unbridled in the government.” It may be noted that the BJP-JD (U) had a pre-poll alliance for the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections. The JD (U), however, snapped ties with the BJP to form a government in an alliance with the BJP.
The leaders of the saffron outfit in Bihar claim that the party missed an opportunity to “throw the burden of Nitish Kumar” in the state politics. A section of the party leaders also argue that “there is no politics in Bihar without Nitish Kumar”. Incidentally, Nitish Kumar has been the Chief Minister of Bihar since 2005, except for a few months when Jitan Ram Manjhi had become his replacement.
While the BJP leaders argue that the party struck ties with the JD (U) despite contrarian assertions in the past by the top brass of the outfit to weaken the Opposition, the state unit of the saffron organization appears still awaiting cues from the central leaders.
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