After giving a long rope to the Nitish Kumar baiters in his party, the RJD supremo lalu Prasad has decided to rein in them and rescue the embattled Chief Minister from embarrassment. lalu asked his partymen to refrain from unnecessary utterances and if they have any issue they should instead contact him.
Nitish who is already under fire from the opposition for the alleged deterioration in law and order situation, spate of murders and involvement of the ruling class legislators or their kin in the crime, also came under stinging attack from the senior leaders of the RJD who went a step ahead of the opposition training their guns at the CM.
Amongst them the most vocal is RJD MP and octogenarian leader Mohammad Taslimuddin. He said, “Making Nitish as CM was a mistake. The RJD should have nominated its own person as CM. Nitish is not even eligible to become a Mukhiya and he is day dreaming to become the PM. If I had my way I would have walked out of this alliance right now.”
Nitish also came under attack from other two senior RJD leaders Raghubansh Prasad Singh and Prabhunath Singh, both former MPs. RJD vice president Raghubansh has made it a point to criticise Nitish every now and then and Prabhunath opened front against him after shifting of former RJD Siwan MP Mohammad Shahabuddin from Siwan to Bhagalpur central jail.
In its first, the RJD issued a show cause notice to Taslimuddin for his comments giving him one week time to reply or face action.
While the leaders of opposition parties stepped up their jungle raj chorus and started speculating that the Mahagathbandhan Government would not last even half of its term, lalu stepped in to clear the misconception. He said, “Our alliance is strong like a rock and it is unbreakable. The opposition is totally frustrated over their defeat in the Assembly polls and good governance by the present Government. I can understand the pain of RSS, BJP, Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi. They need not salivate by thinking that this Government would fall due to infighting.”
With the slapping of the show cause notice to Taslimuddin, the Nitish baiters in RJD have fallen silent. The political observers said that lalu was playing smartly to gag the critics in his party in the larger interest of his GenNext, or his two sons Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav, who are number two and number three status respectively in the Government. Any crack in the grand alliance at this moment would jeopardize their future, they feel. Even lalu is enjoying unchallenged power as his party bounced back due to this alliance.
Tejashwi, who is Deputy CM, reportedly expressed his grave annoyance over the criticism by Taslimuddin, Raghubansh and Prabhunath and told his dad in no uncertain terms that giving a long rope to them would be disastrous for the government and the alliance. Publicly, he assailed the opposition for defaming Bihar by mounting attack on the government. He asked, "Why the BJP leaders are not taking pride in admitting that one of their rapist and absconder leader is a Minister at the Centre and another from whose house unaccounted money to the tune of Rs 1.50 crore was seized is also a Central MinisterIJ" Privately, the Deputy CM prevailed upon his father to take action against the critics of the CM and silence them.