Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Tuesday accused Bihar chief minister and former alliance partner Nitish Kumar of being greedy for power. Yadav said Kumar was one of those who people who switched sides when it suited them.

“I have lost count of the number of times he has changed his stance and his allegiance for the sake of power,” Yadav said at a press conference.

The RJD leader said he was hesitant to put Kumar in a leadership position, but that Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had advised him to consider the JD(U) leader. “Has Kumar forgotten that he had not only lost twice in two Assembly elections, but was also defeated in the Lok Sabha election,” Yadav said.

He alleged that Kumar had broken away from the alliance only after Yadav’s son, former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, was being praised by the public for his work. “Kumar wanted to make my sons [Tejashwi and Tej Pratap] scapegoats in politics,” he added.

Kumar’s praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi “shows he was with the BJP from the beginning of ‘mahagathbandhan’, Yadav said. On Monday, Kumar had said there was no one who had the capacity to challenge Modi in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

SC to hear plea to cancel Kumar’s Legislative Council membership

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a plea seeking to cancel Kumar’s membership in the state Legislative Council, PTI reported. The plea alleged that Kumar had concealed a criminal case against him accusing him of killing a local Congress leader Sitaram Singh in 1991.

2019 ka bhi jayjaykaar kar diya ki Narendra Modi ka koi challenge nahi hai, ye to mila hua tha shuru se: Lalu Yadav on #NitishKumar pic.twitter.com/mWa8evLM8H — ANI (@ANI_news) August 1, 2017

Mai nahi chahta tha iss aadmi ko aage neta khada kiya jaaye, iss par koi bharosa nahi. Lekin Mulayam ji ne kaha, maan lo: Lalu on #Nitish pic.twitter.com/HLnARTZ1oB — ANI (@ANI_news) August 1, 2017

Changing alliances

Kumar joined hands with the BJP and was sworn in as the chief minister of Bihar on July 27, 14 hours after he resigned from the post. The Congress, RJD and JD(U) made up the alliance in the state, which Kumar broke away from to ally with the BJP. The Bihar chief minister won the floor test in the Assembly on July 28 with a comfortable 131-108 margin. After proving his majority in the House, he said the mandate was to serve the people of Bihar and not one family.