Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar lashed out at Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejashwi Yadav in the state Assembly on Friday, after the leader of the Opposition brought up old criminal charges against him, reported NDTV.
“He’s lying,” Kumar said. “I keep listening because he is the son of a friend who’s like a brother to me. I don’t say anything. Who made his father? Who made him deputy chief minister?” The chief minister added that he quit the alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal in 2017 after Yadav could not explain the charges against him.
Yadav had referred to the 1991 murder case, the Srijan scam, and the controversy over a book by Kumar, among others charges, according to the Hindustan Times. The chief minister has been acquitted of all charges in the murder case.
“Everyone knows the court orders in my case and he is still repeating lies,” Kumar said. “I tolerated everything, but now it is too much.”
The leader of the Opposition also called out the chief minister for a jibe he made about having “8-9 children”, during campaigning for the recently-concluded Bihar Assembly polls. “I hope the chief minister is aware that the youngest child of my parents was a girl, born after two sons,” Yadav said. Nitish Kumar during campaigning implied that Yadav’s parents had had multiple children because they had wanted a son.
Tejashwi Yadav also added that the chief minister has only one son. “Could we apply his own yardsticks and say that he did not have another out of fear that it could be a girl?” Yadav asked.
The leader of the Opposition claimed that while he was talking about employment matters during the campaigning, his opponents had other things in mind. “A person no less than the prime minister indulged in name-calling,” he said.
“I do not like to make snide remarks against my elders,” he said. “This goes against the values I have been brought up with. I have always addressed the honourable chief minister, even in speeches uttered in the public, as chacha [uncle].”
He further asked if such utterances suit the chief minister to which Kumar responded with a laugh.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary then clarified the charges and urged the Chair to stop members of the House from making unsubstantiated claims. As Yadav again got up to offer his rebuttal, Nitish Kumar seemed visibly upset.
However, Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha said he would have the matter examined and take action following that. Tejashwi Yadav then again repeated his allegations.
After Kumar’s reply, chaos broke out in the House. The Speaker then adjourned the House for half an hour.
It was the last day of the five-day session.
After the Assembly session, Yadav clarified his remarks. Tejashwi Yadav said that Kumar indirectly referred to his father, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, during one his rallies, claiming that some people kept on having children who were female just for the sake of having a son, according to ANI. “I said it doesn’t suit the most experienced CM [chief minister] to drag my sisters into politics,” the RJD leader clarified.
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