A pugnacious RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Tuesday turned the tables on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as he marched to the Bihar Assembly along with nine of the 13 legislators, who reportedly broke away from his party on Monday.
Lalu led the nine “rebel” MLAs along with hundreds of his party supporters to present them before the Speaker, but he was not present in his Chamber. Later, the nine MLAs met Assembly Secretary and submitted letters of support to the RJD.
Later, in his inimitable style, Lalu went to meet the governor in a rickshaw along with his party legislators.
Earlier, the RJD supremo blamed Nitish for hatching a conspiracy with Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary to split the RJD.
“He is a scandal master. After divorce with the BJP, he is going to any extent to poach MLAs of rival parties,” Lalu told reporters at the airport here.
“After divorce with the BJP, Nitish has gone mad and he is luring MLAs of rival parties with ministerial berths to save his minority government,” Lalu alleged.
“The whole world saw his conspiracy, which went awry,” he added. He also accused Nitish of throttling democracy in Bihar and making the Speaker his toy.
Lalu also convened an emergency meeting of legislative party in which 16 members including nine “dissenting” MLAs were present.
The four legislators who were absent in the meeting are Samrat Chaudhary, Raghuvendra Pratap Singh, Akhtar-ul-Iman and Jawaid Eqbal Ansari.
Chaudhary is the Chief Whip of the RJD and the quartet had been elected to the Assembly more than once. Party sources alleged that the rebels were ambitious to contest the Lok Sabha elections under the JD(U) banner. “The party will issue a show cause to the four MLAs before initiating any disciplinary action against them,” said Abdul Bari Siddiqui, RJD leader in the Assembly.
“Giving recognition to any faction of less than 2/3rd of total members is a violation of Anti Defection Law and it’s purely an unconstitutional action by the Speaker,” said Siddiqui.
Lalu also charged Chaudhary (Speaker) of his involvement in the conspiracy of the murder of his party MP Rajesh Kumar. “Perhaps, this is the reason behind this unconstitutional act by the Speaker at the behest of Nitish Kumar,” Lalu alleged.
The Speaker rubbished the allegation levelled by Prasad and said the decision was lawful.
“I do not know who is saying what on television channels ... but the Assembly secretariat has taken a right decision,” Chaudhary said.