‘Can PM Modi guarantee Nitish Kumar won’t do another U-turn’: Tejashwi’s potshots at NDA

Tejashwi took credit for clearing the decks for mass appointments during the 17-month tenure of the previous Nitish-led Mahagathbandhan government.

The RJD leader also took aim at new Deputy CMs and BJP leaders, Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha. He reminded Samrat of his salvos against the JD(U) chief, asking him to take off his pagdi (turban) that he had once vowed to remove only after Nitish ceased to be the CM.

He also asked Sinha if he had ever imagined that he could become the Assembly Speaker, Leader of Opposition, and currently Deputy CM – all in a matter of three years in the wake of Nitish’s U-turns.

Targeting Nitish without showing any rancour, Tejashwi said: “I hold you in high esteem and will continue to do the same. I always treat you as my Dashrath. I wish you good heath and long life. My advice to you is that you have to identify your Kaikeyi. Dashrath had exiled Ram. But I am not seeking an exile but an opportunity to go to people…I wonder how you would justify your latest switch”.

When interrupted by an NDA legislator on what the RJD would tell the people, Tejashwi said: “I would tell them how I had given them a lot of jobs in the departments under the RJD (in the previous Mahagathbandhan government). We proved how one department (education) could give over two lakh jobs in 17 months, a feat not achieved by any government”.

He claimed that CM Nitish and then finance minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary had sent finance secretary S Siddharth to him to “explain that the government had no money to initiate mass appointments”. He said, “But I insisted in clear terms that it had to be done. And it was done. This was despite the CM saying during a 2020 Assembly campaign speech if I would get money for mass appointments from my father (RJD chief Lalu Prasad)…. Why should I take credit. I also ask BJP what they would do when Nitish would try to deny you credit for your work.”

Highlighting how he and Lalu had been followers of socialist

Icon late Karpoori Thakur, who was recently awarded the Bharat Ratna, Tejashwi told Nitish: “But I also want to remind you that it was Jana Sangh (BJP’s erstwhile avatar) that had removed Karpoori as CM in 1979 for bringing quota for OBCs and EBCs… But now, you have joined BJP for whom Bharat Ratna is not samman (honour) but a deal and politics of vote.”

Taking a swipe at the BJP over its “Modi ki guarantee” pitch, Tejashwi asked, “Can PM Modi guarantee that Nitish Kumar won’t do another U-turn?”

He also reminded Nitish of how he had parted ways with the BJP in August 2022 while alleging that the latter had been trying to “split JD (U)”. “You (Nitish) had also said how you don’t want to become PM and just wanted to strengthen the Opposition against BJP”, he said, adding the Mahagathbandhan was surprised and dismayed at Nitish’s move to dump it “without any valid reason”.