Nitish Forced To Rebut Claims He Wanted To Be V-P; BJP Worries About Its Bihar Initiatives

A day after BJP leader Sushil Modi claimed that the BJP and the JD (U) parted ways because Nitish Kumar was not made Vice-President, the Bihar CM rushed to deny it. Nitish’s rebuttal came on a day Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankar took oath of office. The denial possibly came as the ambitious CM who wishes to be PM in 2024 doesn’t want to be seen as challenging a Jat V-P. “I have no such desire. Did they forget how much our party supported their President and Vice-President candidates?” he said, pointing to how he had announced his exit from the NDA only after polls were over. In Bihar BJP, no one is grieving over Nitish’s exit from the NDA. It is good riddance; their only worry is about the fate of their initiatives such as the mega textile park undertaken by industries minister Shahnawaz Hussain. State BJP chief Sanjay Jaiswal says, “Nitish didn’t like our work on the textile park; we had brought land prices down. Whenever we raised issues of law and order, he did not like it. He didn’t like the NIA investigation into the PFI links case. I bet by Holi next year, Tejashwi who has support of 115 MLAs, will force Nitish out of CM’s office.”  BJP feels it was the arrest of Bhola Yadav, a key accused in the land-for-railway-job scam by the CBI last month that triggered Tejashwi to forgive Nitish for 2017 betrayal.