Patna,(BiharTimes): The meeting between chief minister Nitish Kumar and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi in Delhi failed to yield the result expected by Janata Dal (United).
According to sources Rahul spoke little in his 20 minutes talks with Nitish. The latter reportedly reminded Congess party leader’s stand against corruption and the way he tore a copy of ordinance on politicians convicted on the charge of corruption.
That is why when state Congress chief and education minister Ashok Chaudhary was on Monday asked to comment he remained silent.
However, when prodded he said he was not going to mediate between RJD and JD(U).
Sources said that the Congress leadership was not convinced by Nitish’s argument against Tejashwi. Had it been the case of Lalu Prasad Yadav the Congress vice president would have a different view.
Congress top brass see the CBI action as politically motivated and meant to destabilize the Grand Alliance government.
Besides, the Congress is in a bind. If it asks Tejashwi to put in his papers it will have to take a similar stand on its own chief minister in Himachal Pradesh, Virbhadra Singh, who has been chargesheeted by CBI earlier this year.
Not only that the Congress party has now lost much of trust in Nitish Kumar.
“The issue is not just Tejashwi’s resignation. Nitish’s repeated flip-flop, be it on demonetization or choice of Presidential candidate has left a bad impression about the Bihar chief minister. In contrast RJD chief is being considered as a time-tested ally with a much larger mass support,” said sources.
However, the latest development has created further political uncertainty in Bihar, especially within JD(U) as former president Sharad Yadav, whom Nitish met, is not yet convince. He and several other JD(U) leaders have openly sided with RJD and see the whole exercise as a conspiracy hatched by the BJP.
