Bihar state chief and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) convenor Nitish Kumar on Monday firmly denied that there was any possibility that his party would again form a political alliance with the federally ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Talking to the media, the JD-U convenor said he would “rather die” than return to an alliance with the BJP, accusing the federally ruling party of filing lawsuits against his deputy Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD “deliberately [and] without basis”.
Terming the earlier alliance with the BJP in 2015 a “mistake”, Kumar said that BJP “went through so much effort. They slapped cases against Tejashwi and his father Lalu Prasad Yadav to get me on board. Now again, they are trying to get after them. These people keep doing such things.”
The Bihar state chief's statement came after several BJP politicians accused him of “abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trust” and rejecting all speculations of a reunion with Yadav's JD-U.
The head of the BJP in Bihar state told media on Sunday: “We have sought to stamp out rumors among our party cadre about such realignment. Of course, the state chief has the proclivity to oscillate like a pendulum. But we are not going to be cheated by [Kumar] again.” .
“Nitish Kumar has grown hugely unpopular. It was his unpopularity that had caused his JD-U to perform badly in the assembly polls of 2020 when we did much better. Prime Minister Narendra Modi showed magnanimity in deciding to stick to the promise made before elections and Nitish Kumar, the habitual betrayer that he is, abused the PM's trust,” he added.
Kumar broke the alliance with BJP last August for a second time. Previously, in 2014, he called off the alliance to protest against the elevation of Narendra Modi as the candidate for Prime Minister of India.