He is very selfish: BJP MP slams Nitish Kumar for opting out of Cabinet

india

Updated: May 31, 2019 14:42 IST

BJP leader Gopal Narayan Singh on Friday slammed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for turning down his party’s offer of one spot in the Cabinet just a few hours before the oath-taking ceremony of Narendra Modi and his council of ministers.

“Nitish only thinks for his own benefits. He is very selfish and takes decisions for his own benefits. He is very selfish,” said the Rajya Sabha MP.

“With the help of the BJP, he ran the government in Bihar for seven long years. But, the moment he realised that he can run the government independently, he kicked out our party. No alliance partners are protesting for Cabinet berths. I feel that people in Bihar will also point fingers at Nitish Kumar for his move,” he lashed out.

The JD(U) on Thursday decided to not be a part of Narendra Modi’s new Cabinet, saying it would not accept the BJP’s offer of only one ministerial berth.

“They (BJP) wanted only one person from JD(U) in the Cabinet, so it would have been just symbolic participation. We informed them that we do not need it (Cabinet berth),” JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar had said after a meeting of party leaders.

Kumar, who later attended Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony, had stated, “It is not a big issue. We are fully in the NDA and not upset at all. We are working together. There is no confusion.”

JD(U) won 16 seats in Bihar in the recently concluded Lok Sabha, while BJP bagged 17.

Despite being a part of the National Democratic Alliance, the party was also not part of the last central government. The BJP, however, is sharing power in the Bihar government with its leader Sushil Kumar Modi as the Deputy Chief Minister.

(The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text, only the headline has been changed.)