Sidelined for long and dumped at last, the BJP in Bihar on Sunday fiercely blamed chief minister Nitish Kumar and his ruling JD(U) for the end of the two parties’ alliance and their coalition in the state government, saying the regional party “betrayed both the BJP and Bihar’s people”.
Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi of the BJP, whose removal from the state Cabinet along with that of the other 10 BJP ministers was recommended to governor D.Y. Patil by Mr Kumar, voiced the national party’s injured innocence as he announced the separation an hour after the JD(U) first spelt it out. Mr Modi, often considered by many to be the Bihar BJP leader with the closest rapport with Mr Kumar, hit out at the freshly-estranged regional ally and vowed vengeance in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
“Today will enter in Bihar’s political history as a black day as the JD(U) snapped its 17-year-old tie with the BJP in an act of betrayal. We had contested the 2010 Assembly polls together and got a huge mandate on the basis of our government’s commendable past work. The JD(U) broke this mandate in one blow,” said Mr Modi, accompanied by BJP national vice-president C.P. Thakur and several ministers and MLAs. He also questioned the reasoning behind the JD(U)’s decision, saying, “Despite word from our senior leaders such as Rajnath Singh yesterday about consulting the JD(U) before naming a PM candidate, what happened in the past four days to compel the JD(U) to take such a decision?” The BJP will observe a “Betrayal Day” and shutdown across Bihar on June 18, said Mr Modi, appealing to BJP workers to implement the bandh peacefully.