Friction in Bihar NDA comes to fore; ED raid on IAS officer shocks political circles

New Delhi: Differences of opinion among the ruling NDA partners in Bihar are turning out to be a cause of concern for the BJPled grouping. Even, the recent Enforcement Directorate raids on premises linked to an IAS officer considered close to Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar have come as a rude shock for the state’s political circles.

Allies, however, officially maintain that the NDA is, and will remain, united.

While Kumarled JDU, a prominent BJP ally, has strongly opposed the Uttar Pradesh government’s order asking eateries along the Kanwar route to display the names of their owners, Bihar BJP leaders have demanded a UPtype directive in the NDAruled state. BJP MLA Haribhushan Thakur Bachol said that there was no harm in displaying the name. “If you have a business, what’s the harm in displaying your name? The Bihar government should also implement the UP governmenttype order on kanwar route in Bihar,” Bachol told ET.

A day earlier, JDU leader KC Tyagi had told ET that despite a large kanwar route in Bihar, the state has never issued such a diktat.

At a recent event in Patna on Saturday, Union minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha chief Jitan Ram Manjhi took a dig at Kumar. Manjhi said that when he broke off with Kumar’s JDU and formed his own party in 2015, Kumar ridiculed him. “He (Kumar) said that ‘I don’t have money and I cannot run the party’. Today, my party is not just functioning, but running at a great speed,” he said during his speech at the event. Manjhi also recalled how Kumar asked him in 2023 to merge his party with JDU or leave NDA. “I thank BJP and Narendra Modi. I not only joined NDA, but my son Santosh Kumar Suman became an MLC and minister with three departments, much more than what JDU offered me earlier,” he added. Manjhi later clarified that he was thankful to Kumar and will never utter a word against him in future.

On the issue of special status for Bihar, JDU is not only maintaining its earlier stand but constantly raising the demand before the central government. BJP, on the other hand, maintains that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always given more to Bihar.

“Whatever will be required for the development of Bihar, Prime Minister Modi will give it to the state. He has given special package to Bihar in the past and Bihar is very much his priority,” Bihar deputy chief minister Samrat Choudhary told ET.

After raids on premises linked to Bihar’s principal secretary (energy) Sanjeev Hans, a senior JDU minister rang up one of the deputy chief ministers of Bihar and warned that such raids were not good and might create differences among the partners, according to JDU sources. Both deputy chief ministers in Bihar are from BJP.