Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United expelled five parliamentarians today
Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United today expelled its parliamentarian Shivanand Tiwari, who had openly criticized the Bihar Chief Minister in the past few weeks.
Four Lok Sabha MPs, Jainarain Nishad, Purnmasi Ram, Sushil Kumar Singh and Mangani Lal Mandal were also expelled. Three of them are likely to join the BJP and Mr Mandal is widely expected to walk over to rival Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad.
Mr Tiwari, an outgoing Rajya Sabha member, had been upset at being denied another term in Parliament. Two others, NK Singh and Sabir Ali were also not re-nominated.
Two days ago, Mr Tiwari had accused Nitish Kumar of engineering the split in the RJD and pretending otherwise.
"The mover of the entire episode very politely told mediapersons that he is ignorant about the event. I wish to salute his politeness," Mr Tiwari said disparagingly.
Before this, he had slammed Mr Kumar as an "arrogant person" who believes only in the 'I' mantra. "There is no place in the JD-U for anyone who does not fall in line with the chief minister's views," Mr Tiwari told the party.
The expulsions, just before the national election in three months, betray the party's struggle to contain dissidence ever since Nitish Kumar snapped ties with the BJP, the party's ally of 17 years, over the prominence given to Narendra Modi.
Mr Kumar has always criticized his Gujarat counterpart for the 2002 riots in his state and maintained that he is a divisive leader.
Mr Tiwari, who was considered close to Mr Kumar till last year, apparently fell out of favour after praising Narendra Modi. He had commented that the rise of a tea vendor from a backward caste to prime ministerial candidate was impressive.