Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said all the JD(U) MLAs from Manipur were scheduled to come for the party’s national executive meet in Patna till a couple of days ago, but suddenly their merger with the BJP happened
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for merging five of the six Janata Dal-United (JD-U) MLAs with the saffron party in Manipur and said the picture will be different in 2024 if the Opposition parties unite.
Coming out of the JD-U state executive meet, which will be followed by the national executive meeting in the evening, Kumar said all the six Manipur JD(U) MLAs were scheduled to come for the meet and were ready till a couple of days ago, but suddenly the merger with the BJP happened. “Is it the Constitutional way? They had all come to Bihar a few months ago. People are watching the behaviour of the BJP. What kind of an approach is this? This means they don’t want any Opposition,” he added.
Five of the six JD-U MLAs in Manipur joined the ruling BJP on Friday. Mohammad Nasir, MLA from Lilong seat, is the only MLA left in the JD-U, but he is also tipped to join the saffron camp, according to people familiar with the matter.
The merger came after Kumar moved out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to join the Grand Alliance (GA) in August and vowed to work for the Opposition unity across the country for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Earlier in 2020, six of the seven MLAs of the JD-U legislators joined the BJP in Arunachal Pradesh. Last month, the seventh JD(U) MLA also joined the BJP.
Senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Modi was quick to take a dig at the JD-U. “Arunachal ke baad Manipur bhi JD-U mukt. Bahut jald Laluji Bihar ko bhi JD-U mukt kar denge (After Arunachal, Manipur is also JD-U free. Laluji (Rashtirya Janata Dal -RJD- leader Lalu Prasad Yadav) will make Bihar also JD-U-free very soon,” he tweeted.
Later, he said that more state units of the JD(U) will revolt in the coming days. “BJP MLAs revolted in Manipur against the decision of Nitish Kumar betraying Narendra Modi for his personal ambition and joining hands with the RJD. Blaming BJP for the split is like escaping the reality. The fact is that JD-U MLAs left their party, as they were not pleased with the decisions of Nitish Kumar,” he added.
JD-U presidents Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh said that the BJP had shown its character yet again. “Even when we were allies, they did the same in Arunachal. Now, we are out of the alliance, yet they have done the same. They will only learn in 2024. They are panicky for 2024 and resorting to such tactics in every state – be it Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Jharkhand, but people are also watching. They tried it in Bihar also, but here nothing can happen,” he added.
“It is the character of the BJP now that it doesn’t want any other party to grow on its own strength. We fought on our own and won. Like Arunachal, they have repeated it in Manipur. But the people of India are also watching it and the JD-U will use the people’s power to show them the mirror in 2024,” JDU spokesman Neeraj Kumar said.
