New Delhi: Taking a dig at JD-U leader Nitish Kumar for suspension seven party's ministers in Bihar, BJP today said the action was taken after efforts failed to “buy them” ahead of the trust vote chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi faces in the Assembly on February 20.
BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said JD-U will go into history as the first party in the country to sack its own chief minister, its ministers and its MLAs. It has so far expelled or suspended 16 legislators, including ministers and the chief minister, he said.
“The question is why were they not ousted along with the chief minister? Action was taken against them now as efforts made to buy them failed. Nitish Kumar was horse-trading with them and when it did not work, he suspended them. Nitish Kumar is frustrated and dejected,” he said, claiming that some more JD-U MLAs are in the process of being shown the door.
“A day will come when Nitish Kumar will be left alone in JD-U. There is no democracy in JD-U and even legislators are thrown out of the party,”
Hussain said the way Nitish Kumar has “humiliated and ousted” a maha-dalit, the first ever from the maha-dalit community to occupy the chair of chief minister in Bihar, the people of the state will not forgive him.
“There is angst among the poor and maha-dalits who are protesting on the streets of Bihar against Kumar's decision to oust Manjhi,” he claimed.
Janata Dal(U) in Bihar suspended from its fold seven ministers owing allegiance to chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, ahead of the February 20 trial of strength for him on the floor of the Assembly.
The BJP leader also denied there was any meeting between BJP and RSS leaders to discuss the Bihar situation. It is wrong to say that any such meeting took place in Delhi. “Such rumours are being spread by Nitish Kumar,” he said.
Leader of Opposition in Bihar assembly Nand Kishore Yadav accused Kumar of throwing Bihar into a “well.”
“If Nitish Kumar takes an honest look at himself, he will realize how his machinations in the past 20 months, when he snapped ties with BJP have pushed Bihar into a well. Bihar's rate of development has been steadily declining,” he said.
Yadav questioned Nitish Kumar for “suddenly dreaming” that Jitan Ram Manjhi was not following his roadmap.
He said till January, both Nitish and Manjhi were making grand announcements from the same stage and invoking the guru-shishya tradition, “then how come in February, Manjhi suddenly started working on BJP's directions? In the space of a week, BJP became responsible for the failures of the JD-U government and downfall of Bihar?”
Yadav said “the people of Bihar would make Nitish pay for his every sin. The Dalits of the state want to know if Manjhi was incapable, then why was he made the Chief Minister and now, why was he being removed. To call a dalit ‘untrustworthy' reflects the anti-dalit mentality of Nitish Kumar,” he said.
