Giriraj Singh asked if Mr Kharge was "stupid" to have done a 'photo session' with Nitish Kumar (File)
In a reaction to Congress Chief Mallikarjun Kharge's remarks that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's 'turnaround' was 'pre-planned', Union Minister Giriraj Singh referred to the INDIA bloc meetings in Patna, Bengaluru and Mumbai, and asked if Mr Kharge was 'stupid' to have done a 'photo session' with him during the meetings.
Congress Chief Kharge has alleged that the decision of Janata Dal-United (JDU) Chief Nitish Kumar to end his alliance with 'Mahagathbandhan' was pre-planned and that he kept the INDIA bloc in the dark.
"If it was all pre-planned, was Kharge stupid to have done a photo session with him? If he knew everything, he shouldn't have allowed Nitish Kumar to enter the INDIA bloc," Mr Singh said while speaking to ANI.
"Now, what happened to Kejriwal and Mamata? Didn't Kharge recognise them earlier?" he added.
JDU leader Nitish Kumar's move to end his alliance with the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal to revive his tie-up with the BJP comes as a massive setback to the INDIA bloc months before it takes on the formidable BJP in Lok Sabha polls.
Nitish Kumar, after parting ways with the BJP in 2022, took on the initiative of uniting all opposition forces to jointly take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling party in the national election.
Nitish Kumar took the oath as Chief Minister of Bihar for the ninth time in Raj Bhawan, Patna, switching sides again, this time with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
It was for the second time in two years that Nitish Kumar had jumped the ship, his fifth crossover in a little over a decade, preceding his ninth time as chief minister.
Two Deputy Chief Ministers from the BJP, Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, and six other ministers, including Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Santosh Kumar Suman, Shrawan Kumar, and others, also took the oath on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the INDIA bloc is already trying to combat its inner differences after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann announced that they would go solo in their respective states in the Lok Sabha polls.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)