Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, snubbed repeatedly by the BJP, is sending a loud and clear message to the party's central leadership. The Chief Minister has skipped several functions where the invite came from the party brass. The next one on the "ignore' list is the oath ceremony of President-elect Droupadi Murmu, due tomorrow. The Chief Minister will not be attending the function in Delhi, said party sources, because he will be tied up with a meeting on the Central welfare scheme MNREGA.
On July 17, he had given a miss to a meeting of Chief Ministers called by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and deputed a proxy. The meet to discuss issues related to the national flag, was attended by the BJP's Tarkishor Prasad.
On Friday, he again skipped a dinner for outgoing President Ram Nath Kovind, hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This time, he cited the oath ceremony of seven newly elected members of the legislative council -- which was over by 4 pm.
The provocation appears to be the BJP's omission of an invite to him for the Prime Minister's address at the Bihar Legislative Assembly's centenary celebrations. PM Modi was persuaded to attend the function by Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha, who since taking over as Speaker crossed swords with the Chief Minister several times, leading to an angry outburst by him. This was the first time a Prime Minister addressed the Bihar legislative assembly.
At the concluding ceremony, Mr Sinha did not even mention the state's five-time Chief Minister. His photo was missing from the souvenir published on the occasion.
The BJP is yet to respond to his demands – including the removal of Speaker and a request to stop public criticism of the government by state BJP leaders.
The face-off between the state BJP and Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United started soon after Amit Shah decided to retain him as the Chief Minister despite the BJP's better performance in the assembly elections. Now the bickering between the two parties – usually preceded by a BJP provocation -- has almost become a regular occurance.
The last occasion was last month when state BJP chief Sanjay Jaiswal made disparaging comments about the JD(U) over the Agnipath scheme. The BJP has made it clear that it is unhappy with the Nitish Kumar government's handling of the protests over the short service recruitment scheme in the armed forces.
The JD(U) has made its clear that they blame the BJP "Earlier there was a limit, there was control. Now there is a deficiency. This is not a good tradition," said senior cabinet minister Vijender Yadav.
