NEW DELHI: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday attributed his previous switch from the BJP-led NDA to his party colleagues while firmly committing to the alliance’s future.
Crediting the BJP for his rise to power, Nitish said that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had made him chief minister for the first time.
“I am going to remain here always. My party made me go here and there a couple of times earlier, but this is not going to happen again. Who made me CM? It was the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee,” Nitish said.
His remarks come days after he blamed his close aide, Rajiv Ranjan alias Lallan Singh, for the break-up with the BJP, accusing the saffron party of trying to split the JD(U). Nitish’s confession came at a rally in Madhubani in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“We had been together since the beginning. It was my party colleague sitting here who caused me to go astray,” the JD(U) supremo said, pointing toward Lallan Singh.
“We had fought them (RJD) together. He (Lallan) knows it well. He has been in the party for long and even served as its president. He, too, finally realised that they (RJD) were up to some mischief,” he added.
Lallan was then the national president of the JD(U), and he stepped down just a month before Kumar abruptly exited the INDIA bloc, which both leaders had helped form.
Speculation had been rife that Lallan was made to resign due to perceptions that he had grown too close to the RJD, headed by Kumar’s long-time rival, Lalu Prasad Yadav.
The JD(U) and BJP’s alliance dates back to the 1990s. It first broke in 2013 over disagreements regarding the elevation of PM Modi, who was chief minister of Gujarat as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.
Kumar later allied with RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, but that alliance lasted only until 2017, when he returned to the NDA fold.
The alliance continued until 2022, when Kumar once again joined hands with the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan, vowing to defeat the BJP and accusing it of attempting to split his party.
However, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls last year, Nitish returned to the NDA, abandoning the INDIA bloc that he had helped form by uniting parties opposed to the BJP.
