Bihar Chief Minister and JD-U leader Nitish Kumar
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today trashed arch-rival Lalu Prasad's charge that he had engineered the split in his Rashtriya Janata Dal, or the RJD, as he welcomed the breakaway faction's plans to join his party, the Janata Dal (United).
"If they (the lawmakers) want to join us, they are free to do so,'' Nitish Kumar told reporters this afternoon, soon after arriving in the capital to attend the meeting of Third Front leaders. He also justified the split in the RJD, and denied that the ruling party had exerted pressure on the speaker to recognize the breakaway group hastily. "There were differences in the RJD, and these took the shape of a split. There was no pressure on the speaker,'' the Bihar chief minister said. (
Nitish Kumar has gone crazy after divorce with BJP: Lalu Prasad)
The RJD chief, who rushed to Patna this morning on a damage control mission, had accused Nitish Kumar of scripting a conspiracy to break his RJD. He has also reached out to old friend Ram Vilas Paswan, who is said to be seeking an alliance with the BJP.
An irate Lalu lashed out at the Bihar chief minister, accusing him of adopting unscrupulous means to make up numbers in the Bihar assembly after his split with the BJP last year. "Nitish Kumar has gone crazy since the divorce (with the BJP)... his conspiracy is similar to the American Water'kaand' (Watergate)," said the RJD chief this morning, vowing to expose "other technical details" about a revolt against him by some party legislators yesterday.
On Monday, 13 of Lalu's 22 Bihar legislators announced that they had split away from his RJD. They met Bihar Assembly Speaker Uday Narain Choudhary and sought to be recognised as a separate group. The Speaker, who immediately declared them "unattached" from the RJD, too has earned Mr Yadav's ire. (
Split in RJD: what comes next?)
Lalu claims nine legislators have returned to the party and more rebels could be on their way back.