Amid political turmoil, Bihar assembly speaker reaches Lalu Yadav's residence

PATNA: Amid the political turmoil in Bihar post the resignation of Rajiv Ranjan Singh as JD (U) chief, State Assembly Speaker Awadh Bihari Choudhary reached Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Yadav's residence on Sunday.

The Vidhan Sabha Speaker was accompanied by Environment Minister Tej Pratap.

After Singh's resignation as party chief and Nitish Kumar taking over the helm of the party. Meanwhile, the state's political circles are abuzz over Nitish's possible move.

The JD(U) on Friday saw a change at its helm as Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was unanimously re-elected as president of the party at a meeting of the party's national executive in Delhi.

This came after Rajiv Ranjan Singh, popularly known as Lalan Singh, resigned from the post. It is not the first time Nitish Kumar has taken over as president of the party.

In 2016, he became party president after replacing Sharad Yadav. In 2013, he broke ranks with the NDA after a 17-year alliance following the announcement of Narendra Modi as BJP's prime ministerial candidate.

Kumar, who harboured prime ministerial ambitions himself, took offence with BJP nominating Modi for the top post. In 2017, Kumar forged a grand alliance with RJD and Congress and returned as chief minister in 2015.

He walked out of the grand alliance in 2017, accusing the RJD of corruption and choking governance in the state. In 2022, Nitish Kumar snapped ties with the BJP once again, alleging the BJP was conspiring against him and trying to influence JD-U MLAs to rebel against him.

Earlier, Janata Dal (United) leader Rajiv Ranjan Singh (Lalan Singh), who on Friday resigned as party chief, has termed "untrue and misleading" reports in a section of media about his having to leave the post due to an alleged effort to make RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav Chief Minister of Bihar and said he had voluntarily stepped down due to busyness related to work concerning his constituency.

"The news was published prominently in a leading newspaper and some news channels showed that I had to resign in an attempt to make Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav the Chief Minister. A news item has also been published that on December 20, a meeting of a dozen MLAs was held in the office of a minister in which I was also present. The report has talked about a rift in JD-U. This news is completely misleading, and untrue and tarnishes my image," the statement said.

"I was in Delhi with the Chief Minister on December 20 and took part in a meeting with all the MPs at the CM's Delhi residence in the evening," it added. The MP alleged that the news was published to "tarnish the image" and raised questions about his "37-year-old ties with Nitish Kumarji."

Speaking to ANI on Saturday, Sushil Modi claimed that the big churn in the JD (U) has set off a power 'game' in Bihar's primary ruling party and a lot more would happen in the coming days.

"We said earlier that only Lalan Singh would be removed as he engineered the exit of 12-13 sitting JD(U) MLAs from the party and even made attempts to install (deputy CM) Tejashwi Yadav as CM by joining hands with Lalu Yadav. However, Nitish Kumar got a whiff of what was about to happen and pre-empted the move. The stepping down of Lalan Singh came as a timely move. It is just the start of a game and a lot is left to happen," he said.

However, he ruled out Nitish's return to the NDA, saying there was no way back for him into the saffron fold.