JD(U) workers continue to vent spleen

Patna: workers on Friday continued to protest the decision of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to enter the Rajya Sabha, a move seen as signalling the end of his more than two-and-a-half-decade-long stint in Bihar politics.

At the JD(U) office here, situated right across the street from the BJP’s state headquarters, irate party workers staged a demonstration alleging that “traitors” had hatched a “conspiracy” with the alliance partner to “get rid of” their leader, who had been an eyesore for the “powerful liquor lobby” ever since he brought prohibition.

“There are some people in our party who are playing the role of Jaichand (12th-century Rajput chieftain who aided Afghan invader Muhammad Ghori). One is in the Union Cabinet, and the other has come from the BJP and is lording over us now”, an irate JD(U) worker alleged.

The allusion was to Union minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan, an old aide of Nitish Kumar and a former party president, and Sanjay Kumar Jha, the JD(U)’s

working president, who had started as a BJP youth wing worker in the 1990s.

Neither Lalan nor Jha has responded to the allegations that have been levelled against them ever since Kumar filed his nomination papers for Rajya Sabha polls on Thursday, minutes after announcing his intent on social media.