PatnaBihar’s newly-appointed Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday hit out at BJP leader Sushil Modi for claiming that the Janata Dal-United leader wants to become the country’s Vice President, calling it a “joke”.
“You heard a man (Sushil Modi) say that I wanted to be the Vice President. what a joke! This is fake. I had no such desire. Did they forget how much our party supported them in press and VP elections? …Let them speak against me so that they can get a post again, the Bihar CM said while talking to reporters.
#watch , “You heard a man (Sushil Modi) say that I wanted to be the Vice President. what a joke! This is fake. I had no such desire. Did they forget how much support our party had in the pre-VP elections?..Let them talk against me so that they get a post again,” says Bihar CM Nitish Kumar pic.twitter.com/sj9Q7lqvbh
— ANI (@ANI) 11 August 2022
Kumar’s remarks came a day after Sushil Modi suggested that the rift between his party and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) could be linked to the Bihar chief minister’s desire to become the country’s vice-president. “Nitish wanted to become the Vice President of India. Many senior JDU leaders gave voice to BJP ministers if possible,” Sushil Kumar Modi said in a tweet.
Nitish wanted to become the Vice President of India. Many senior leaders of JDU gave voice to BJP ministers if possible.@years @ABP News @ZeeBiharNews @ News18India
— Sushil Kumar Modi (@sushilmodi) 10 August 2022
The BJP-led NDA had chosen former West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar as its vice-president candidate. Dhankhar took the top post by defeating Margaret Alva of the opposition.
On Wednesday, Nitish Kumar took oath as the Chief Minister of Bihar again after breaking away from the BJP and joining the RJD-led Grand Alliance to form the government in the state.
Kumar snapped ties with the BJP and alleged that the party was trying to break the JD(U) and joined hands with political opponents RJD in the grand alliance on Tuesday.
There was speculation about his future in the political arena with suggestions of visits to his ‘national ambitions’. The BJP alleges that by breaking the alliance and joining hands with RJD, Nitish Kumar has disrespected the mandate given by the people.
Former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had questioned the JD(U) leader’s change of stand, and accused him of favoring “corruption and Congressism”. Prasad also asked whether Kumar’s politics which was around “non-Congressism” had ended, adding that it was the BJP that made him a big leader.
The BJP leader’s remarks came hours before the swearing-in ceremony of Nitish Kumar as Bihar chief minister for the eighth time. However, RJD leader Manoj Jha called the move a “ghar wapsi of 2017-2020 mandate”.