Bihar CM dials up PM for political lifeline?

Mumbai: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar may have exercised his call a friend option – dialling up PM Narendra Modi for a political lifeline, even as the situation deteriorates in Bihar where he stands to lose all politically. Kumar’s phone call comes in the wake of his earlier rejection of Modi’s offer to take up a Union Ministry post ( Rail Ministry) that he rejected while upping the ante against former party colleague and Union Minister RCP Singh, who resigned from JD(U) over the last weekend after a Disproportionate Assets case against him in Bihar.

JD(U) spokesperson Lallan Singh has publicly said RCP’s tenure in Rajya Sabha was curtailed after the latter revealed that Amit Shah had assured him of his continuation after the recently held RS polls. For its part, BJP has maintained that they will stand by their prepoll commitment to JD(U) and Kumar would continue as CM till 2025. Kumar’s call to the PM may just have been a bid to cement his political position, with other options coming a cropper. Kumar, seemingly in talks with RJD head Tejaswi Yadav, is also said to have called up the Congress high command in the wake of the latter’s MLAs engaging in back-room parleys with BJP.

“Nitish always enjoyed a love-hate relationship with Modi, had refused to ally with NDA if then Gujarat CM Modi was made PM face of BJP in 2014. Kumar broke alliance with RJD in Bihar, when he learnt of a plot by RJD founder Laloo Prasad to install Tejasvi as the CM, and rushed to the BJP to retain power and his CM post, ” sources said. Next, Kumar cultivated BJP DyCM Sushil Modi to the consternation of BJP that, post last state polls, first disempowered Sushil’s carte blanche powers over the party’s MLAs and then, kicked him upstairs into the Union cabinet of ministers. With his numbers (of MLAs) at 43, compared to BJP’s 77 and RJD’s 79 (after induction of 7 AIMIM MLAs), Nitish Kumar’s political options are drying up now.