The RJD MLA from Maner, Bhai Virendra (extreme right in picture), lost his cool on Wednesday when he found his name missing from the list of speakers and the foundation stone of National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology, Patna.e screamed in the presence of Union minister Kapil Sibal and chief minister Nitish Kumar at Bihta, saying: “You have insulted me. Do you think I have come here to eat?” It took officials some time to pacify the MLA. “His voice was so loud that we thought the function would be disturbed,” said a relieved official. Virendra’s vocal power enabled him to take on the ruling party inside the Assembly single-handedly. The RJD leaders pointed out that Virendra was the local MLA and he deserved to be one of the guests of honour in the show. “But Nitish does not respect his own MLAs, let alone the opposition MLAs,” said a senior RJD leader. The JD(U) MP, Jai Narayan Nishad, demanded in public that the animal and fish resources ministry, previously held by BJP leader Giriraj Singh, should be given to a person hailing from the fishermen caste. A habitual party hopper, Nishad had once got his son to contest an election on RJD ticket while he himself was in the BJP. A JD(U) leader said he was pressurising the chief minister to make his son a member of the Bihar Legislative Council and then promote him as a minister. “Most politicians indulge in caste politics to promote their sons. Lalu Prasad, Shakuni Choudhary, Narendra Singh… the list is endless. Why blame just Nishad for using caste to promote his son?” asked a senior leader of the RJD. The presence of the JD(U) MLA, Manish Kumar, in a BJP meeting in Banka has been taken with a pinch of salt by a group of his party MLAs. “The BJP-JD(U) combination was like the Salim-Javed pair in Bollywood. As long as they stuck together, they delivered hits. Once they parted ways, fortunes of both in script-writing dipped,” said an MLA. Another Dal legislator preferred to compare the broken alliance partners to Laxmikant-Pyarelal. “You may compare the former alliance with any Bollywood pair but the fact is MLAs of both sides are depressed,” said a third JD(U) MLA. Several BJP leaders were flabbergasted when former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi blamed the Nitish Kumar-led state government for the death of a commercial tax officer posted at Karamnasha integrated checkpost in Kaimur. The official died of a cardiac arrest. Modi, who held the portfolio of the commercial tax, claimed that the official was under tremendous mental pressure because the department was running headless. “People do die of heart attacks everyday. We have over 1,000 issues to attack the Nitish government. But this should not be the one. This is like taking things too far,” said a BJP MLA.
Sunday, 21 December 2025
