After his comments on Nitish, RJD MLC faces sharp attack: ‘Do you intend to join BJP’

At the meeting of MLAs and MLCs belonging to the six-party Mahagathbandhan at the Bihar Legislature building before the session began, Kumar reportedly chose to target Singh.

Sources said the CM reprimanded Singh for issuing “and-band (nonsensical) statements” over the past few days.

“The CM also told Singh that he had been aware of his meeting with BJP leader Amit Shah. He teased him if he wanted to join the BJP and contest the Lok Sabha polls,” said a legislator who attended the meeting.

After the statement, the source said, Singh rose from his chair and hit back saying no one could “question his integrity and loyalty to the RJD”. Singh had reasoned that Amit Shah had previously been a Union cooperative minister and he had met Shah as head of Bihar State Cooperative Marketing Union (BISCOMAUN).

Yadav is said to have stepped in at this point by “rising from his chair and asking his MLC to keep quiet”.

Singh later told reporters: “It is true that I had met Amit Shahji during a meeting of the All-India Cooperative Congress. I had duly posted its photographs in my social media posts. It was not a closed door meeting. As Union cooperative minister, Shah in a way is also head of BISCOMAUN.”

But behind the CM’s outburst against Singh seem to be the growing tensions with Singh.

Over the last week, Singh has launched salvos at Kumar.

Hitting out at education minister Chandrashekhar and education department’s additional chief secretary KK Pathak, Singh said the CM kept four-five chosen bureaucrats to keep ministers under control.

Singh later also took on JD(U) leader Ashok Kumar Choudhary for his political flip-flops (from Congress to the JD (U) ). Choudhary had responded by saying that he did not acknowledge Singh.

The episode had set off a war of words between some leaders of the RJD and the JD(U).

Kumar, however, played down tensions in his alliance on the sidelines of another function the same day.

‘”Let it go. Media is running stories on one party only,” he said.