Nitish dares BJP to bring in no-confidence motion and oust him
PATNA: Stung by the BJP's sustained campaign questioning his performance after the snapping of ties with it by his ruling JD(U) around six months ago, CM Nitish Kumar on Wednesday dared the former to bring in no-confidence motion against his government in the current session of the state assembly, maintaining at the same time that if his government lost he would not mind to exit.
The CM threw the challenge at the BJP, rather dramatically, lacing it with emotional surcharge bordering on annoyance at the main opposition party's unrelenting campaign, as a complement to the government's reply to the special debate on "terrorism, communalism and Naxalism" given by water resources minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary. However, the BJP, led by leader of opposition Nand Kishore Yadav, had earlier walkout of the House, objecting to the delivery of government reply by Choudhary. CM Nitish, thereby, turned the table on the BJP.
Nitish said: "If we have really failed, then bring in the no-confidence motion and oust us from the seat of power. They (read state BJP top brass) are speaking daily one thing or the other to undermine my government, announce that I have failed to perform, and also destroy the state's general atmosphere of social harmony."
"They are issuing 64 press notes for publication daily and also holding press conferences, but we will not buckle before them. Rather, we will destroy communalism and communal forces in the state," the CM said. He, in the same vein, made a blistering attack on the BJP: "Terrorism causes communalism, but communalism breeds and promotes terrorism. They supplement and nurse each other."
Incidentally, since the snapping of ties between the BJP and the JD (U) on the issue of elevation of Gujarat CM Narendra Modi (NaMo) as the party's PM candidate, the BJP called CM Nitish a traitor, while the state got scarred by two IM engineered terror attacks at Bodh Gaya and the BJP's Hoonkar rally held in Gandhi Maidan and addressed by NaMo, apart from quite a few incidents of communal violence, police firing and repeated Maoist attacks on police, civilians
and trains.
Given the situation, the BJP has accused of being soft on terror elements and Maoists, alleging that it had rendered the state into a soft zone for them. It also maintained that the Nitish government had deliberately ignored the security concerns about NaMo, despite the Centre's alert with regard to the likely terror attacks.
That apart, the party has badgered him saying that the CM was not expanding the cabinet, because of the fear of revolt by the dissatisfied JD(U) MLAs and eventual fall of his government. CM Nitish dismissed the demand, saying that the right to expand the cabinet was his prerogative.
The CM punctured the BJP's position in the House as the main opposition, saying that it did not have the mandate to sit in the opposition. "The BJP is 'nakli (fake)' opposition. The real opposition is the RJD. In fact, as it causes displacement of people in 'other situations', so has it displaced the RJD," CM Nitish said, indicating "other situations" means communal violence.
To stress the performance of the government under him, the CM said he on Wednesday flagged off a Rs 1,400 crore project that had been kept in abeyance by the former urban development minister Prem Kumar, a BJP minister. "I will not expose the reasons for which it was held back by the minister," he said.
Stating that the BJP had been maligning the state police and civil
administration, the CM said it was Bihar police that first caught the terrorist at Patna junction on the day of Hoonkar rally, which, in fact, led to the cracking of the IM terror modules by the NIA - putting light on the elements behind the terror attacks at both Bodh Gaya and Hunkar rally.
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