Tejashwi seeks to rankle Nitish, ends up getting ticked off

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav was on Monday ticked off by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, hisformer boss, whom he sought to place on the mat by raising thedemand for conferring ''Bharat Ratna'' on late socialist leaderKarpoori Thakur.

Thakur was a former Chief Minister and OBC stalwart whomKumar as well as Yadavs father Lalu Prasad consider theirmentor. His 117thbirth anniversary was celebrated on Sunday.

The 31 years old opposition leader, who likes to ranklethe chief minister with critical posts on his Twitter handle,came out with a couple of caustic tweets demanding the highestcivilian honour for the late leader.

''Nitish ji, we understand that you are now held hostageby the BJP and have been rendered incapable of even securingcentral status for Patna University. But, at least you shouldset politics aside and support our demand for Bharat Ratna toKarpoori Thakur.

''Would you agree to join our MPs and MLAs in a paradebefore the Rashtrapati Bhavan to press the demand?'' Yadavtweeted.

The former Deputy CM was referring to an incident ofOctober, 2017 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to theBihar capital to attend a function held as part of centenarycelebrations of the Patna University.

The chief minister, himself an alumnus of the varsity,had in his address made repeated requests, with his handsfolded, for the grant of central status.

However, in his speech Modi had dismissed the grant ofcentral status as an outdated practice and said PU should trymaking use of the Centres measures to help universitiesbecome ''world class''.

The gesture by the Prime Minister was construed as areflection of Kumars diminished clout with the BJP, which hehad dumped in 2013 but realigned four years later.

Yadav followed up his tweet with another post on themicro-blogging site minutes later.

''Bharat Ratna for Karpoori Thakur is our old demand. TheNDA has 39 Lok Sabha MPs from Bihar where the total number ofseats is 40. Why is the double engine government unable to dothe honour to Thakur? ''Is it because he hailed from a socially unprivilegedclass? Why does the CM not meet the PM with the demand?'' heasked.

Kumar, who famously described the young political rivalas ''the son of my friend, close enough to be a brother'' sometime ago, shot back.

''We have already sent our recommendation to the Centrefor conferring Bharat Ratna on Karpoori Thakur. In the past,too, recommendations to the effect had been sent in the year2007 and again in 2017, 2018 and 2019. It is our earnestdemand that he gets Bharat Ratna'', Kumar tweeted.

Although Kumar did not tag or make any mention of Yadav,what propelled him to come out with the tweet was not lost onthe politically savvy people of the state.

Meanwhile, a fragment of the speech delivered by Kumar onthe previous day on the occasion of Thakurs birth anniversaryhas triggered speculations in a section of the media that hehad grown wary of being displaced by the new and aggressiveBJP.

The saffron party has come out with a statement takingexception to the ''misinterpretation''.

In his speech at the JD(U) state headquarters, Kumar hadrecalled dethroning of Thakur, the then chief minister, afterhe implemented recommendations of the Mungeri Lal Commissionwhich provided reservations to OBCs.

In the same breath, Kumar remarked cryptically ''similarlypeople tend to get angry with us when we do something for theuplift of the downtrodden''.

Karpoori Thakur who first became the chief minister ofBihar in 1970 had to quit after six months in June 1971.

He became the CM again in the government of Janata Party,an amalgam of Indian National Congress (Organisation), CharanSingh's Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD), Socialists and Bhartiya JanaSangh, the earlier avatar of the BJP, in 1977, but again hehad to quit after two years in office.

Kumars reference was to Thakur's second term.

The JD(U) de facto leader has returned as chief ministerfor the fourth consecutive term though his party returned witha tally that was far lower than that of the BJP.

State BJP spokesman Nikhil Anand, however, came out witha strongly worded statement saying ''Karpoori Thakur is a rolemodel for all of us.

''His remarks about the late leaders political life mustnot be misinterpreted and conclusions must not be drawn aboutthe current political scenario in the state''.