Summary:
Patna, Aug 8 (PTI) Former Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Chirag Paswan on Monday hit out at the JD(U) and dared it to take on the BJP directly instead of accusing him of involvement in a conspiracy to dent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar"s popularity.
Addressing a press conference here, Paswan claimed the chief minister faced "greater danger from his close aides than from me" even as he alleged that Kumar has insulted former JD(U) national president RCP Singh, and had previously humiliated Sharad Yadav and George Fernandes.
"Never before has one heard of a party accusing its own former national president of corruption.
But, this is Nitish Kumar for you," Paswan said.
Paswan, who had in the 2020 assembly polls fielded candidates, many of them BJP rebels, in all seats fought by the JD(U) which saw its tally plummet from over 70 five years ago to under 45, bristled at the term "Chirag model" coined by Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan, the party"s current national president.
"If there is a Chirag model, it stands for our call for "Bihar First Bihari First", our vision for the state which the CM never respected.
He should stop blaming me for his party"s debacle.
The Janata Dal (United) is, indeed, a divided house.
RCP has been made to quit.
But Nitish Kumar needs to be wary of people like Lalan and Upendra Kushwaha," he alleged.
Paswan mocked the JD(U)"s claim of Kumar having transformed Bihar during the more than a decade and a half he has ruled the state and cited the state"s poor rankings in reports of the NITI Aayog.
"And when the NITI Aayog met yesterday, our CM refused to attend the meeting.