Nitish tried to fulfil prime ministerial ambitions, backstabbed BJP: Shah

Purnea: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday flayed former ally Nitish Kumar, accusing the Bihar chief minister of backstabbing the BJP and trying to fulfil prime ministerial ambitions while sitting in the laps of Congress and RJD .

At a rally held in this north Bihar town, Shah asserted that the jodi of Kumar and RJD president Lalu Prasad will be wiped out ( soopda saaf) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and, a year later, the BJP will win a majority on its own in the state assembly elections.

Widely regarded as the BJP's principal strategist, Shah arrived in Bihar on his first trip since the party was robbed of power in the upheaval last month. He, however, refrained from joining issue with the contention of Kumar's JD(U) that the BJP had tried to break the party.

The number of seats won by Kumar's party in 2020 assembly polls was nearly half of our tally. BJP showed magnanimity ( badappan) in backing him as the CM in keeping with its earlier promise. But, with the Lok Sabha polls nearing, his prime ministerial ambitions got the better of him and he backstabbed us, alleged Shah.

The JD(U) has been indirectly blaming the BJP for the fall in its tally in the last assembly polls when the Lok Janshakti Party, then headed by Chirag Paswan, fielded many saffron party rebels against candidates of the chief minister's party.

Shah mocked the seven-party ruling Mahagathbandhan', which also includes three Left parties, for raising apprehensions that the BJP leader's two-day trip of Seemanchal region could lead to communal polarisation in the area, which has a high concentration of Muslims.