Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Rajya Sabha MP and former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Saturday took a swipe at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and said Lalu Prasad Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) will break the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar, adding that Nitish Kumar can never become Prime Minister in his life.

BJP has delivered a big jolt to the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) in the northeast as five out of seven MLAs from Manipur have joined hands with BJP. Earlier bulk of the JDU MLAs joined the BJP in Arunachal Pradesh. Speaking to ANI, Sushil Modi said, “Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur have now become free from JD(U). In Bihar, Lalu Yadav very soon will break the JD(U). And, he will make Bihar ‘Mukt’ (get rid of) from JD(U).”

Asked about JD(U) chief Rajiv Ranjan Lalan Singh’s allegation that the merger of the party MLAs in Manipur into BJP was done by using money power, he said, “The allegations of Lalan ji is baseless. Are their MLAs so weak that they can be bought by money? If so, then they should introspect to who they have given the tickets.”

The former Bihar deputy chief minister claimed that the JD(U) MLAs in Manipur joined BJP of their own will but not under any pressure as they wanted to be in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

“They (the JDU MLAs in Manipur) wanted to be in the NDA. Now, JD(U) parted ways with NDA. The MLAs were not willing to make allies with Congress. So it is their natural decision to join hands with the BJP. This is the result of breaking the alliance in Bihar,” Modi said.

BJP leader said JDU is now far away from becoming a national party.

“They had the aspiration to become a national party. Earlier they were in three states. Now they are only restricted to Bihar. They cannot become a national party. This is all the reaction to breaking the NDA alliance in Bihar. The JD(U) MLAs and workers in other states do not want to leave the NDA,” Modi said.

On Nitish Kumar’s prospects of becoming the prime ministerial candidate in 2024 general elections, Sushil Modi said Nitish Kumar broke the alliance with NDA just to remain in national news adding that he can never become the PM.
Modi said, “Posters and hoardings do not make anyone the Prime Minister. If a leader only has 5-10 MPs from his party, how can he become the PM? Nitish ji wants to be in the news. He himself knows that he cannot become even the prime ministerial candidate. He can never become the PM in this life.”

Five JDU MLAs merged with the ruling party BJP on Friday, according to a statement from Manipur Legislative Assembly Secretariat. These names include Joykishan Singh, Ngursanglur Sanate, Md. Achab Uddin, Thangjam Arunkumar and LM Khaute.The Bharatiya Janata Party secured a majority of 32 seats in the 60-member state Assembly in the recently held Assembly elections, results of which were declared on March 10.

On 25 August, the lone JDU MLA From Arunachal Pradesh joined the BJP in the presence of national president JP Nadda and Arunachal CM Pema Khandu.

The latest political developments come weeks after Nitish Kumar dumped the BJP and joined hands with Tejashwi Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress and other parties to govern Bihar.

Lone JDU MLA Techi Kaso also joined BJP, with this now BJP stands at 49 out of 60 Assembly seats (MLA). Out of 9 Corporators of JDU, 8 have joined BJP; now the total number of BJP corporators is 18 out of 20.

Further, out of 18 Zilla Parishad members (ZPM) of JDU, 17 have joined BJP. Now out of 241 members, BJP has 206 Zilla Parishad members.

In addition, out of 119 Gram Panchayat Members (GPM) of JDU, more than 100 joined BJP. With this, BJP now has around 6,530 out of 8,332.

Those aware of the development say that the BJP has decided to hit back at the JDU after what transpired in Bihar recently. In 2020 the BJP-JD(U) fought election in an alliance and went on to form the government with Nitish Kumar being given the chief minister’s post.

In less than two years’ time, Nitish Kumar flipped his choices and in a surprise move went on to stitch an alliance with RJD and Congress to form a ‘Grand Alliance’ government in Bihar.