A day after Janata Dal (United) broke its 17-year-old alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday rejected the opposition party's charge of betrayal and accused them of betraying and ignoring its own senior leaders.
"They (the BJP) have betrayed their own leaders... how can they accuse us of betrayal?" Kumar asked.
"If anyone is talking about betrayal, then betrayal has been from the other side. Someone who betrays his own seniors, can't talk about being betrayed," Kumar told media here.
Kumar further said the JD-U had chosen to opt out of the alliance because it could not see eye to eye with the new BJP leadership, especially in the wake of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's elevation as the leader of the BJP's 2014 general election campaign.
"The era of Atal-Advani is over.... we cannot accept the new order of the BJP," Kumar reiterated today, referring to the iconic leaders of the BJP, LK Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee.
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Asserting that decision to split with the NDA not taken in haste, Kumar said: "It was decided after due consideration and taken at the right time."
"I called BJP leaders to decide a roadmap of the split. They did not come. By not coming for the meeting, BJP closed the door on talks," he added.
Meanwhile, the Bihar unit of the BJP has reacted strongly to JD(U)'s decision to part ways and has called for a shutdown across the state on June 18.
Senior BJP leader Sushil Modi, who was the deputy chief minister in the Nitish government said that they would observe Betrayal Day on Tuesday by observing a state wide shutdown.
Demanding the resignation of Nitish Kumar, Modi said that the Chief Minister should seek a fresh mandate as JD(U) leader after the separation.
Putting an end to all the speculations, the JD-U on Sunday finally announced that there would not be any alliance with the BJP in the Bihar government.
Addressing a press conference here, JD(U) president Sharad Yadav said that the developments in the last six months had made things difficult for them to work together with the BJP.
"We were in the NDA for 17 years and we had a national agenda that was formed with Atalji and Advaniji. We have tried to stick to the framework of the NDA but for the past 6-7 months situation has changed," he said.
"Any alliance runs by friendship and trust - we tried our best to run the alliance," he added.
JD (U) has 118 MLAs in 243-member Bihar assembly and needs the support of only four more MLAs to have a majority.
There are 91 MLAS from BJP, 21 from RJD and one each from LJP and CPI in the state assembly.
