Bihar CM Nitish Kumar slams Tejashwi
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar targeted Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and his former deputy Tejashwi Yadav by invoking his father and former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav during a debate in the assembly on Tuesday.
“What was there in Bihar before? It was I who made your (Tejashwi Yadav) father what he became. Even the people from your caste were asking me why I was doing this, but I still supported him,” the chief minister hit back at Yadav when he interrupted his speech in the assembly, as reported by NDTV.
Estimated Budget of ₹3,16,895.02 crore
Nitish Kumar had begun speaking about the development work done by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in the state. The face-off on Tuesday came a day after the Rashtriya Janata Dal leader criticized the budget presented by the Nitish Kumar government.
On March 3, the Bihar government tabled an estimated Budget of ₹3,16,895.02 crore in the Assembly for the financial year 2025-26. The Budget allocation has been higher by ₹38,169.30 crore than the previous Budget of ₹2,78,725.72 crore. This was the last budget of this Nitish Kumar dispensation as assembly elections in Bihar are due later this year.
The exchange of words took place amid uproar by the Opposition in the assembly. “You don’t know anything. When Lalu Yadav was opposing the separation of Extremely Backward Classes and Backward Classes in Bihar, I said it was wrong, and I opposed him at that time,” the chief minister said.
JD-U chief Nitish Kumar snapped ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2013, only to return four years later, after having shared power with the RJD between 2015 and 2017. In 2022, he again crossed over to the RJD-helmed Mahagathbandhan, with Tejashwi as his deputy chief minister. But Nitish Kumar switched back to the NDA last year.
Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar emerged on India’s political scene about five decades ago during the socialist movement launched by Jayaprakash Narayan. Since then, the two have been allies and rivals in Bihar.
Earlier speaking in the assembly, Tejashwi compared the previous government in Bihar, led by his father and former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and slammed the regime led by his former ally Nitish Kumar.