Days after former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav had claimed that the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) was keeping its “doors open” for the former ally Janata Dal (United), CM Nitish Kumar on Sunday snubbed the RJD, stating that he had forged alliances “by mistake” with the opposition party, which “did nothing” while in power. Last year, Nitish Kumar had snubbed ties with the opposition bloc INDIA and returned to the BJP-led NDA ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
While speaking to reporters in the north Bihar district of Muzaffarpur, as part of a state-wide Pragati Yatra, Kumar quashed all rumours of joining hands with his former ally and said, “Those who were in power before us… did they do anything? People used to fear stepping out of their homes after sunset. I had by mistake aligned with them a couple of times,” as quoted by news agency PTI.
“What was the condition of women back then? Today you can see these self-help groups, which we gave the name ‘Jivika’. The Centre replicated our model and called it ‘Ajivika’. Did you see such confident rural women earlier?” asked the longest-serving CM of the state.
The Bihar CM, however, did not take questions about the cryptic “offer” from Prasad, which was made light of by the RJD supremo’s son and heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav but endorsed by ally Congress.
Prasad’s comments had come in the backdrop of Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s equivocal stance on projecting Kumar as the chief ministerial candidate in the assembly polls due in less than a year. State BJP leaders, on their part, have been maintaining that the JD(U) supremo will be the “face” of the NDA in the 2025 assembly elections. The BJP, which fell short of a majority in the Lok Sabha polls, depends on allies like JD(U) and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP to survive in power at the Centre.
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