A day after the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) government inducted eight party MLAs into Bihar cabinet and offered only one ministry to ally BJP in retaliation to NDA’s one portfolio offer to the JD(U), both the parties have boycotted each other’s Iftar parties in Patna, reports said on Monday. The chinks in the JD(U)-BJP armour is more than enough to cheer the RJD and the Congress leaders.
Despite Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s “all is well with the BJP” declaration, the JD(U) didn’t invite the BJP leaders of the state to attend an Iftar Party it organised at the Haj Bhawan at Rajbansi Nagar in Patna while RJD ally and former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi participated in the iftar. In a similar manner, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi didn’t invite the JD(U) leaders to attend the iftar party organised by him.
On the other hand, former Bihar chief minister and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s wife Rabri Devi hosted iftar at her residence and the party was attended by several leaders of the grand alliance including Jitan Ram Manjhi and Shivanand Tiwari.
The Nitish Kumar-led Bihar cabinet expanded on Sunday with eight new ministers taking the oath of office and secrecy in the presence of Governor Lalji Tandon but none of the BJP MLA was given a portfolio in the state cabinet. Ashok Choudhary, Shyam Rajak, Lakshmeshwar Rai, Beema Bharti, Ram Sevak Singh, Sanjay Jha, Neeraj Kumar and Narendra Narayan Yadav of the Janata Dal (United) took oath as ministers on Sunday.
The Bihar cabinet expansion came a day after JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar rejected ally BJP’s offer of one cabinet birth in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led 57-member National Democratic Alliance-II (NDA) cabinet. Rumours made the rounds that the JD(U) dropped itself from the NDA-II cabinet in the last minute as it was not given a berth of its choice. However, heading back to Patna, Nitish Kumar clarified on Friday that his party had not made any demand for any particular Cabinet berth from the NDA.
JDU leader KC Tyagi said the proposal that was given was unacceptable to the party, therefore the party leaders took a final decision that in future also JDU will never be a part of the NDA led Union Cabinet.
Urging all the political parties to come together against BJP, senior RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said Nitish Kumar will switch sides but nobody knows when he will do that or what he will say. There no surprise element it because this hasn’t happened once but several times, he added.
