PATNA: RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav on Monday claimed that Union minister of state for home affairs and senior BJP leader Nityanand Rai met him before he had not got a berth in the Narendra Modi cabinet and expressed his desire to join the Lalu Prasad-led party.
“Nityanand Ji had met me before he was not made a Union minister and requested me to take him in the RJD. He also told me that he was not feeling good in the BJP. Now, what would he say?” Tejashwi said while responding to a media query on Rai’s reaction over the RJD leader’s controversial remarks terming the NDA presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu as ‘statue.’
Tejashwi was responding to a media query in the Vidhan Sabha premises in Patna after casting his vote in the presidential election. “What would Nityanand Ji say when he himself came to me with a request to join the RJD,” Tejashwi, the younger son of RJD president Lalu Prasad, said.
Following his 'murti' jibe, senior BJP leaders including Rai, attacked Tejashwi Yadav, saying he (Tejashwi) is not respecting the decision of even his father Lalu Prasad who installed an “uneducated housewife” Rabri Devi as the CM of Bihar in 1997.
Though Rai is yet to react over Tejashwi’s latest revelation, State BJP leaders reacted sharply saying, “Lalu family has problems not only with Nityanand Rai but every Yadav leaders outside their family.”
BJP’s state vice-president and media department’s In-charge Rajib Ranjan said Tejashwi is feeling like a ‘dwarf’ before Rai, hence the RJD leader is issuing such baseless statements about the Union minister of state for home affairs with an aim to remain in news and political discussions.
Ranjan said Rai began his political career with the ABVP and he was the BJP’s state president at the time which Tejashwi was referring to. “Tejashwi should recall the BJP-led NDA had won 39 out of the total 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar in 2019 general election when Rai was the BJP’s state president. Then, the RJD could not win even a single seat. How can Tejashwi imagine that a BJP state president will go to him,” Ranjan said.
Strongly protesting Tejashwi Yadav's unrestrained babble against Rai, Bihar BJP spokesperson Dr Nikhil Anand said that Tejashwi Yadav is getting nervous seeing Nityanand Rai's rising stature in politics. “Lalu family never wants any person from Yadav community outside their family to become minister at the center or in the state, become chief minister of any state or become Union minister of state for home like Nityanand ji,” Anand said.
Rai also hails from Yadav community like Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi.
Nikhil further said that the Lalu family wants Yadavas to be their foot soldiers but not grow-up as leaders or political stalwarts. As the BJP has started promoting Yadavas in party rank and government hierarchy, the Lalu family is feeling uncomfortable and reacting out of the way. Today, Union minister Bhupender Yadav is the biggest Yadav leader in any party and Nityanand Rai is growing in stature in Bihar. So, Tejashwi’s reaction is obvious and they are attacking the Yadav leaders outside their family, the BJP spokesperson said.
Dr Anand also elaborated that Nityanand Rai ji started his political career with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in 1980 and has also been running the Sangh's Shakha at the initial level. “A person who has taken a pledge to protect BJP's nationalist ideology and religion, culture, cow and Gita can sacrifice his life but can never join RJD,” he said.
