Patna:
Bihar assembly witnessed a bitter exchange between Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his former deputy-turned-rival Tejashwi Yadav today. When Mr Kumar rose to speak in the assembly about the development work done by the NDA government, Mr Yadav interrupted his speech.
“What was there in Bihar earlier? It was I who made your (Tejashwi Yadav) father what he became. Even the people from your caste were asking me why I was doing this, but I still supported him,” the Chief Minister hit back.
Amid a huge uproar by the opposition led by Tejashwi Yadav, Mr Kumar continued, “You don’t know anything. When Lalu Yadav was opposing the separation of Extremely Backward Classes and Backward Classes in Bihar. I said it was wrong, and I opposed him at that time.
Earlier in the assembly, Tejashwi Yadav compared the previous government in Bihar, led by his father and former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad, and slammed the regime led by his former ally Nitish Kumar.
The face-off came a day after the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader sneered at the budget presented by the Nitish Kumar government. Terming the budget “inflated” and drafted with “ink dipped in lies”, he said, “It is strange that despite no revenue generation, the size of the budget keeps increasing. The figure of Rs 3.71 lakh-crore is highly inflated. The budget papers seem to have been written with ink dipped in lies. They could have made it Rs 5 lakh-crore”.
Tejashwi Yadav has been constant in his attack on Nitish Kumar since their alliance snapped in 2024. On Saturday, he mocked the BJP-led NDA government in Bihar, asserting that the time has come to change the two-decade-old dispensation, much like 15-year-old vehicles are banned in the state for spreading pollution.
“The 20-year-old NDA government in Bihar, headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, has now turned into a rickety vehicle. There is a ban on vehicles that are more than 15 years old across Bihar as they emit too much smoke, increase pollution and are harmful to the public,” he said.
Mr Kumar, also the JD(U) chief, had ended ties with the BJP in 2013, only to return four years later, after having shared power with the RJD between 2015 and 2017. In 2022, he again crossed over to the RJD-helmed ‘Mahagathbandhan’ but was back in the NDA last year.
