NEW DELHI, Feb 5: Newly appointed deputy chief ministers of Bihar, Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Parliament complex on Monday.
The meeting came days after JD-U supremo and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar snapped ties with the opposition alliance and joined hands with the BJP again to form the NDA government in the state.
Speaking to PTI after the meeting, Choudhary said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is our leader. We had come to seek his guidance for the development of Bihar.”
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“Also, we had to thank the Prime Minister for conferring the Bharat Ratna on Karpoori Thakur (posthumously). People belonging to extremely backward classes, backward classes and Dalits are feeling immense pride due to the conferring of Bharat Ratna on Karpoori Thakur,” he told PTI.
Sinha described the meeting with the prime minister as a courtesy call and said, “We had gone to thank the Prime Minister for freeing Bihar from the atmosphere of anarchy and from those who were running goondaraj in the state.”
On being questioned about any discussion on the expansion of the Bihar cabinet, Sinha said, “For that, we have a capable leadership and decisions will be taken at an appropriate time.”
Both Choudhary and Sinha slammed the Congress over its allegation that the BJP was trying to poach its MLAs in Bihar.
“Where is the requirement of Congress party’s votes to save our government?” Choudhary said, when asked for his comment on the issue.
“Our government has an absolute majority. There is no need to go anywhere,” he told PTI.
All, but three MLAs of the Congress in Bihar, the second largest constituent of the opposition alliance which lost power last week, were on Sunday flown to Hyderabad amid fears of poaching by the BJP-led NDA, party sources said.
When contacted, AICC in-charge for Bihar Mohan Prakash neither confirmed nor denied the development, but asserted that rumours are being spread that Congress MLAs will break away, when the truth is that JD(U) legislators are under pressure due to voters’ anger against them, after their party’s switch to the NDA.
“They (JDU) should worry about keeping their flock together,” Prakash said.
Hitting back, Sinha alleged the Congress does not have faith in its own legislators and is treating them as “bonded labourers”, which, he said, is “completely inappropriate” in democracy.
“Congress leaders are scared. These are people with dynastic and feudal mentality. They do not have faith in democracy,” he said. (PTI)
