New Delhi: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) on Sunday reiterated that it will not join the Union council of ministers, news agency PTI reported. However, the party rebuffed speculations of a rift with ally BJP asserting “all is well”. JD(U) national chief Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan, addressing a press conference in Patna, dismissed queries about Kumar’s absence at the NITI Aayog meeting, saying “you should ask the chief minister”.
While there is no official word on the reason behind Kumar’s absence, sources close to him cited post-COVID debility as the cause.
Lalan, seen as a frontrunner for a ministerial berth from the JD(U) after RCP Singh’s resignation, said that the party wasn’t willing to have any representative in the Union Council of ministers.
“We had decided in 2019, after the Lok Sabha polls, not to join the government at the Centre. We stick to that stand,” PTI quoted him as saying.
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“The decision not to join the Union government was taken by our leader Nitish Kumar who was then also the party’s national president,” Lalan said.
When pointed out that RCP became a minister in 2021, Lalan said, “You should ask him (RCP) who was the national president at that time. He did not take anybody in the loop while arriving at the decision”.
The JD(U) leader further sought to make light of the exit of RCP Singh from the party, who resigned from the Union cabinet recently after being denied another Rajya Sabha term.
“He may have left the party only yesterday. But for long his body was in the party and soul elsewhere,” Lalan said.
The JD(U) national chief, however, advised RCP, his predecessor, to “apply himself to wherever his heart mind and soul lie, without engaging in diatribe against Nitish Kumar”.