According to Tejashwi, RJD and JD(U) only bonded after Nitish apologized to his father
Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, the head of the RJD, said on Thursday that he would only consent to his party forming an alliance with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in 2022 if the latter expressed regret to party leader Lalu Prasad and former Chief Minister Rabri Devi for leaving the party before.
Speaking at a public gathering while on his “Jan Vishwas Yatra” in Siwan, Tejashwi expressed his opposition to Nitish being re-inducted into the grand alliance because the JD (U) had left the alliance in 2017 in order to form a government with the BJP. It appears that Tejashwi allowed his party’s MLAs to attack the chief minister during the current assembly session by yelling insulting slogans at him.
He said that Nitish had asked for forgiveness from his mother and father (Lalu-Rabri) and had made a vow not to make the same mistake (leaving the grand alliance) again. At that time, he said, Nitish had also accused the BJP of splitting his party.
He said, “Nitish had promised to work with us against BJP and had asked Lalu Ji for help.” He said, “We should take Nitish with us if he is joining the alliance with full sincerity as BJP had also launched its Operation Lotus at that time. Senior opposition leaders from across the country told us this.”
The former deputy chief minister said that his party was on the verge of establishing a government in the 2020 state assembly election, but that the grand alliance’s failure to get 10–12 seats as a result of election manipulation by the Nitish administration at the time barred his party from doing so.
He said that the electoral malfeasance was comparable to the already-quashed Chandigarh mayoral race. Tejashwi said that Nitish was trying to dissolve the legislature in order to hold both the Lok Sabha election and the assembly at the same time.
In a harsh response to Tejashwi’s comments, JD (U) claimed that Lalu Prasad had contacted Nitish about forming an alliance in order to establish a grand coalition administration in the state.
