“Nitish Kumar murdered the Alliance…” Tejashwi Yadav vows ‘Khela Hobe’ in 2024 Lok Sabha Elections

“The game is far from over,” former deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav slammed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for his latest political switch to NDA dumping the RJD-Congress alliance and calling him the “murderer of the alliance” that was working in the interest of the people of Bihar.

“We have not walked out of the alliance, Nitish Kumar did. The alliance we formed for the sake of Bihar, we can’t kill it. Rather the alliance was murdered by Nitish Kumar. Neither am I angry nor do I have any angst. Nitish Kumar was respected, is respected and will always be respected. He is my elder and I will always respect him. I will also give my best wishes to BJP for taking him into their folds,” said Tejashwi Yadav in his first response after Nitish Kumar tendered his resignation to Bihar Governor on Sunday morning and then was sworn in as the Chief Minister yet again for the ninth time by the same evening, albeit, supported by BJP.

Nitish Kumar’s Janta Dal (United) fought the Bihar Assembly Election in 2020 along with NDA and formed government but two years down the line, in July 2022 Nitish Kumar walked out of NDA over fears of a ‘political coup’ that he had then claimed being “hatched by BJP to break apart his JD(U), similar to what happened in Maharastra”. In August 2022, along with RJD and Congress, Nitish Kumar was sworn in as the CM of Bihar for the eighth time. But after seventeen months since then and months ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, he has gone back to the folds of NDA, dumping the INDIA alliance bloc. Interestingly, the first united opposition meeting happened in Patna in June 2023 and was called by Kumar.

Tejashwi Yadav while responding to jibes made by JD(U) leaders, claimed that it was the ‘gatbandhan’ government of 17 months where he was the deputy chief minister that had ensured developmental works including employment, investment and even caste-based census in Bihar, unmatched and much ahead of 17 years of NDA rule in the state. “We have 79 MLAs. So if we had the ministries, if they are our ministers who did all the developmental works, shouldn’t they take the credit?”, he asked.

Borrowing the signature “khela hobe” (game on) punch from Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee who used it as her political war cry during the Bengal election 2021 against BJP, Yadav claimed that the game in Bihar was far from over. “We have been honest with our work. The ‘khela’ has just started. The game is far from over. We will not show our cards, we will not reveal our strategies. Take it in writing, Janta dal (United), the political party will be over in 2024. No matter what they do, the people of Bihar are with us. While they take oath today, how long will their alliance survive, no one knows”, he quipped.