PATNA: A day after CM Nitish Kumar’s public displeasure over the Congress party “showing more interests in assembly elections to five states than newly-formed opposition bloc INDIA” made national headlines, his party colleague and water resources department minister Sanjay Kumar Jha came to his defence on Friday.
“Nitish Kumar is the architect of the INDIA bloc, its founder. It was he who prepared the base of this alliance and brought the scattered opposition on one platform…Agar unko lagega kuchh to bolenge (he will say something if feeling bad),” Jha told the media on Friday.
“But what he meant to say was that currently elections are being held in five states and the Congress being the main opposition party in some states and in power in some others, is busy in elections and hence alliance talks will resume after the elections are over,” Jha explained.
Jha’s reactions came a day after the CM expressed his displeasure over the recent turn of events in the INDIA bloc saying, “All of us got together and worked to project Congress as the fulcrum of our unity initiative but the party has shown no such concern. It is interested, at present, only in assembly elections.” The CM had made these observations while speaking at a CPI rally organised in the state capital on Thursday.
The BJP was quick to take a dig at the CM’s observations saying that Nitish was publicly airing his grievances since the Congress has stopped giving him weightage.
“Perhaps, Nitish wanted the Congress to declare him as the leader of the INDIA bloc and run the alliance as per his whims, but the latter showed no interest. Why would they? The Congress is a national party? His anger is the reflection of that very feeling,” BJP legislator to Dhaka Pawan Jaiswal told the media on Friday.
Moreover, RJD chief Lalu Prasad had recently moved closer to the Congress which has not gone down well with the chief minister, Jaiswal alleged.
