JD(U) not even invited to join NDA government, claims Lalu Prasad Yadav

Patna: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad claimed that Nitish Kumar's JD(U) was not even invited to join the NDA government by Prime Minister Narendra Modi or BJP chief Amit Shah in the Cabinet reshuffle on Sunday.

Four junior ministers were on Sunday elevated to the cabinet rank and nine new faces inducted as Ministers of State, in a rejig by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Some JD(U) leaders had got new Kurta Pyjama and Bundi stitched for the swearing-in ceremony, but the elusive invitation did not come," he alleged.

The JD(U) national president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had on Saturday admitted that his party had not been invited to join the government nor consulted by the BJP brass on the expansion issue, Prasad said.

"Why should Prime Minister Modi or BJP president Shah consult Kumar when they know about his character?" the RJD supremo said in a dig at the JD(U) chief, who had dumped the Grand Alliance in July to form a government in Bihar with the BJP.

"Modi and Shah are unlikely to bow before their new ally, the JD(U) and its chief Nitish Kumar," he said.

The RJD supremo took potshots at Kumar for withdrawing a dinner invite to BJP leaders, including the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, at Patna in 2010, over an advertisement row and alleged that the latter had not forgotten it.

Modi was right in not "accepting" the invite to visit Patna for having lunch with the chief minister at his official residence recently after an aerial survey of the flood-affected areas of Bihar, the RJD leader said.

Prasad claimed, in doing so the prime minister has returned "favour" to Nitish Kumar for having cancelled the dinner invite for the visiting BJP leaders seven years ago.

On the induction of the former home secretary and the BJP MP from Arrah, R K Singh, in the Modi government, Prasad said that the former bureaucrat should have been made a Cabinet minister given his vast experience.