Nitish as CM met jailed MLAs in Assembly, called on convicted Chautala in Tihar
Patna,(BiharTimes): The alleged telephonic talks between Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad and jailed former MP of the party, Mohammad Shahabuddin, aired by the Republic TV on the very first day of its launch, has come after a series of allegations on land deals of Lalu family made by the senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi.
The Bihar BJP swung into action to meet Governor Ramnath Kovind and urged chief minister Nitish Kumar to take action. The party also called on him to speak on the issue as to how can a mafia from jail ‘run’ the government.
The saffron party leaders are asking the chief minister to take moral responsibility.
But independent political observers are of the view that it would be too much to expect Nitish Kumar to take moral responsibility. “Nitish had already joined hands with Lalu Prasad after he was convicted in September 2013. So, there is no scope to expect any drastic move from him,” a senior journalist with an English daily was quoted as saying. Besides, Lalu is not holding any position and his relationship with Shahabuddin was known beforehand to Nitish.
“In case of Lalu he may be under political compulsion as his government survives on 80 MLAs of the RJD against 71 of his own party, JJD(U). But what prompted Nitish Kumar to go all the way to knock at the door of Tihar Jail to meet former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, a convicted politician, in a serious corruption case. He did so as the chief minister of the state on March 27, 2015,” said a political commentator wishing anonymity.
Chautala and his son Ajay Chautala were sent to 10 years imprisonment in teachers’ recruitment scam in 2013. Nitish met him in jail as he wanted to merge the six parties of Janata Parivar with Mulayam Singh Yadav as its supremo. It was other thing that another Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav, who is Mulayam’s cousin, who publicly said that his party is not in favour of such idea.
In the same way when Nitish Kumar became the chief minister for the first time on March 3, 2000 he openly sought support of all non-RJD legislators. In this regard he publicly welcomed half a dozen don-turned-MLAs who were brought from Beur Jail. Yet his government failed the floor test and had to resign on March 10. Mind it, the BJP was very much with Nitish then yet no question of morality was raised.
Anyway the BJP’s strategy is to continue putting pressure on the Grand Alliance. With Presidential election round the corner and 2019 parliamentary election in mind the BJP is putting everything to break the alliance.
The saffron party knows that it could win 31 seats in Bihar in 2014 simply because JD(U) and RJD fought separately. If not it would be difficult for it to repeat the performance. In UP too the BJP had reached its peak by winning 73 out of 80 seats.
