The contagion of rebellion against Bihar chief minister Nitish is spreading fast in the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) as his alliance partner steps up pressure on the 8-time CM to step down and make way for his young deputy Tejashwi Yadav.
According to local media reports, Nitish is expected to resign as the chief minister to facilitate the coronation of Tejashwi later this year as part of their power-sharing agreement.
Nitish, a seasoned politician who never hesitated to dump allies for new ones in his quest to retain power, surprised everyone by announcing to part ways with long-time ally BJP and forming a new government with arch-rival RJD in August last year.
As per the agreement, Tejashwi is serving as a deputy chief minister and is expected to replace his boss this year. Nitish has dropped hints several times that he would pass on the mantle to Tejashwi – who, despite his father Lalu Prasad’s absence, made RJD the largest party in the 2020 Assembly election.
As days pass by, the underlying impatience in the RJD camps seems to be growing. Though Tejashwi has maintained a silence on his succession plans, many leaders of his party have openly attacked chief minister Kumar for “misgovernance” and have asked him to make way for their leader.
The latest to join the bandwagon is RJD MLA Sudhakar Singh – who resigned as Bihar’s agriculture minister after he criticised his own government over its policies last year. On Friday, he said that CM Nitish had lost the confidence of voters and challenged him to win the Assembly election from any seat of his choice.
Notably, Nitish has been a member of the legislative council except for one term in the lower house.
In a video statement, MLA Sudhakar Singh questioned the “honesty” of CM Nitish – a reference to his reported promise of handing over the throne to his deputy. “Choose any constituency of your choice and contest the next Assembly election. The public will decide. There is no existence of loyalty-honesty in your political life,” he said.
The easiness is the RJD camp is not without valid reasons. As per reports, CM Nitish is said to have promised Tejashwi to resign in March this year but he has yet to make any announcement.
Not just anti-Nitish public statement, RJD has apparently deployed some other measures to pressurise Nitish to live up to his promise. In early January, Bihar’s education minister from RJD quota, Chandrasekhar launched a new controversy over Ramcharitmanas – a popular version of Ramayana.
Chandrasekhar alleged that Ramcharitmanas contains couplets insulting to other backward communities and should be removed – much to the embarrassment of the Nitish-led government. Even as the controversy was kept alive for several days in public discourse, Tejashwi never criticised or stopped his minister.
Finally, Nitish had to step in to publicly declare: “No one should interfere in religious matters.” His appeal, however, largely fell on deaf ears.
To add to Nitish’s misery, Chandrasekhar’s statement created another problem as Janata Dal (United) parliamentary board chairman Upendra Kushwaha openly asked the party boss to rein in alliance partners before they damage JDU’s poll prospects.
As matters escalated, Kushwaha was accused of planning to move to the BJP. In response, he launched a direct attack on Nitish and dared him to throw him out of the party.