Even after 20 days of the CBI raids on Deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav residential premise and filing of FIR against him that caused a political cliffhanger in Bihar, no solution of the stalemate has been found by the Mahagathbandhan allies.
All eyes are set on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who has not spoken on the issue publicly even though he spoke to Tejashwi, Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi but nothing concrete seemed emerged out.
The time is running out as the Monsoon Session of the Bihar Assembly has to be commenced on July 28 and the Opposition BJP has threatened to stall the proceedings of the two Houses while raising demand for the sacking of Tejashwi and his elder brother and Health Minister Tej Pratap Yadav who is accused of playing fraud with the Bharat Petrolium company while getting dealership of a petrol outlet.
Speculation is rife that the CM whose party JD(U) has time and again asserted that Nitish would not compromise with his zero toelrance policy on crime and corruption, may take some steps before Friday.
Political observers say that he hasa limited options including the sacking of Tejashwi if he continue refusing resignation and dissolution of the Ministry. Sometimes back Nitish had reportedly said that he had sought resignations of his Ministers in cases against them were found registered “why one expects that I will protect anybody.” In retaliation RJD supremo lalu Prasad announced that Tejashwi would not resign merely on the basis of FIR against him.
The leaders of both JD(U) and RJD mounted bitter attack against each other but all of them stressed that the alliance would continue. Apparently no leader and party wanted to be discredited with the charge of breaking Mahagathbandhan which got a massive mandate in November 2015.
Taking a sadistic pleasure of the infighting in the grand allaince the BJP extended support to Nitish and even offered outside support to him for continuiance of the Government provided the CM severe ties with the RJD. But sources said that Nitish did not get any concrete assurance from the central leadership of the BJP.
On the other hand Nitish is facing stiff resistence from a sectgion of his own party JD(U) over the removal or sacking of Tejashwi. Power Minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav strongly batted for lalu’s son in the party meeting and even went on record saying that Nitish joined hands with lalu when the RJD supremo was also convicted by the CBI court in corruption case.
Another senior leader defending Tejashwi is former party president Sharad Yadav who said that continuinace of Mahagathbandhan was more important than resignation of Tejashwi. Many leaders of JD(U) have reasoned with Nitish that for the sake of secularism and anti-BJP front it was necessary to further strengthen the opposition unity in view of the 2019 election.
It is not known what was the reaction of Nitish but one develoopment has taken place that all the JD(U) spokesmen who were belching fire have been silenced. Is this silence an indication of some turmoil; is a big question.