PATNA: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said on Monday that rebel JD(U) parliamentary board chairman Upendra Kushwaha is free to leave the party and go anywhere he wishes.
Talking to media persons during his ongoing 'Samadhan Yatra', Nitish said that if somebody comes to the party and then decides to leave, then he is free to leave the party at his will.
Nitish's reaction comes ahead of Kushwaha's two-day party workers' meeting in Patna on February 19 and 20. On Sunday, Kushwaha had written an open letter to workers inviting them to meet to discuss the ‘existing situation' in JD(U). He alleged in the letter that the party was getting weakened due to internal factors.
Toeing similar lines, JD(U) national president and MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh aka Lalan Singh said that Kushwaha was no longer holding the post of the party's parliamentary board chairman. “Kushwaha is not holding any party post,” remarked Singh, dropping ample hints that there was no possibility of any rapprochement between Kushwaha and the party's top leadership.
Though there has not been any formal announcement about Kushwaha losing his party post, Singh's remark shows the party’s top leadership has made up its mind for a final showdown with Kushwaha sooner than later.
Singh also accused Kushwaha of provoking workers against the party leadership. He said that the party had given him full respect but now he was working against it.
Earlier Nitish had said, “I promoted Kushwaha by making him an MLA but he left the party. When he re-joined the party, I made him a Rajya Sabha member but he again left the party. Now he has returned to the party for the third time but I do not know what has happened in the last two months. I have been asking to talk to him but he is not doing so for reasons best known to him.”
Making an oblique reference to the BJP, Nitish said that Kushwaha had adopted such an aggressive approach that he was getting support from the saffron party. “If somebody is speaking against me every day, it only hints that he has struck a deal with the other party (BJP),” he claimed.
State JD(U) president Umesh Kushwaha alleged that Upendra Kushwaha had entered into a deal with another party and was talking about saving the party.
Reacting to Kushwaha's two-day workers' meeting, the leader of opposition in the legislative council Samrat Chaudhary said, “The BJP had nothing to do with the Kushwaha episode. It's an internal matter of the JD(U). But he (Kushwaha) should be given his share for which he is asking.”