LIVE | ‘Will stay together’: Nitish after taking oath as Bihar CM in NDA fold

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday took a swipe at JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar over his latest volte-face after he walked out of the Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar, dubbing him as a “snollygoster” or a shrewd and unprincipled politician.

He shared his social media post from 2017 when Kumar had broken away from the Mahagathbandhan or the grand alliance in Bihar with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress and returned to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) despite being foes for a long time.

“Word of the day! Definition of *snollygoster* US dialect: a shrewd, unprincipled politician. First Known Use: 1845. Most recent use: 26/7/17,” Tharoor had tweeted in 2017.

Tagging that post, the former Union minister said Sunday in a post of X, “Didn’t realise it would be the Word of Another Day too!#snollygoster.” The prolific author and man of many letters, known for throwing in obscure English words into social media lexicon, has used snollygoster earlier as well.

In 2017, he had tweeted the word in an apparent reference to Kumar switching sides to the BJP. He did so again in 2019 when BJP's Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as chief minister of Maharashtra with Nationalist Congress Party's Ajit Pawar seemingly switching over to support a BJP-led government.

In November 2022, Tharoor had taken a swipe at party-hopping politicians in India by posting a video of a chameleon changing shades as it climbs a colour-banded pole and threw in the rarely used word snollygoster.

His sharp-witted jibe had then come in the backdrop of several politicians switching sides ahead of the Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat assembly polls.

The Congress on Sunday compared Bihar Kumar to a “chameleon”, and said the people of the state will never forgive him for his “betrayal”.

(With agency inputs)

The JD(U) on Sunday blamed the Congress for the collapse of the INDIA bloc in Bihar, saying its leaders were interested in strengthening their party and not the opposition grouping.

Janata Dal (United) spokesperson KC Tyagi told reporters that a “caucus” within the Congress wanted to capture the INDIA bloc leadership and its president Mallikarjun Kharge’s name was proposed as the chairperson of the grouping as part of the conspiracy.

The decision taken about Kharge at the INDIA bloc meeting earlier this month had shocked the JD(U), which believed that its president and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar would be named as the convenor without being saddled with any chairperson, its leaders had then said.

Another JD(U) spokesperson, Rajib Ranjan, was more severe in targeting the Congress, alleging that it first sunk itself by trying to make a person who lacks any quality and harms the opposition alliance a prime minister. The comment was a likely swipe at Rahul Gandhi.

Ranjan described the Congress as “Bhasmasur” (a mythological demon whose touch would burn down anyone).

Hitting back at the Congress’s charge of opportunism against Kumar after he walked out of the opposition alliance and rejoined hands with old ally BJP, Tyagi said it is the obduracy of the main opposition party that derailed the INDIA bloc.

He said the JD(U) had problems with the RJD, the main opposition party in Bihar, at a local level but squarely blamed the Congress for the development.

“We have regret as well as relief that our leader who brought together the INDIA bloc has walked out of it,” Tyagi said.

The Congress wanted to capture the ground of regional parties by making a disproportionate demand of seats in the states they are strong in, he said.

The party “ordered” its allies like West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Bihar CM Kumar to join its Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra as if they were its workers, Tyagi added.

The Congress never accommodated any ally in the states where it is strong, he said and cited several assembly polls.

The INDIA bloc sorely lacked the optics needed to take on a grassroots party like the BJP, which is headed by a popular leader in Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said.

(With PTI inputs)

Describing Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s volte-face as “political opportunism”, BJP MP from West Bengal Dilip Ghosh on Sunday said there should be an end to it.

Ghosh, the former president of West Bengal BJP, was speaking to reporters after Kumar dumped the RJD and Congress, and joined hands with the BJP to form a new government in the state.

“A politician usually takes oath as CM once during a five-year term. But Nitish Kumar is such a politician, who takes oath at least twice or thrice during a five-year term, and that too from different camps each time,” he said.

“I think this is political opportunism and it is high time that such things must stop,” he added.

State BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya refused to comment on Ghosh’s statement.

However, he said, “The fact is a loveless marriage cannot go on forever. The JD(U)-RJD tie-up was a loveless marriage. This was bound to happen. Nitish Kumar, by returning to the NDA, is atoning his political sins, which he had committed by dumping the NDA and disregarding the people’s mandate.”

(With agency inputs)