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Charging Nitish Kumar with running the Jitan Ram Manjhi government with remote control, senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi today claimed that the expansion of council of ministers by Manjhi clearly bore stamp of his predecessor who put in trusted men in key ministries.
"Going by new faces in the expanded Jitan Ram Manjhi government and allocation of portfolios to the ministers, it has been proved beyond doubt that the former chief minister has planted his trusted men in key ministries to run the JD(U) government with remote control," Modi told reporters here on the sidelines of his Janata Durbar.
Claiming that Manjhi, who was a 'constitutional' Chief Minister being controlled by the 'actual' Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Modi said the new chief minister was shown list of new ministers at the last minute ahead of yesterday's expansion and was allowed to leverage his position to induct Vinod Kumar Yadav as a minister in place of Vinod Kumar Singh, who figured in the initial list.
He said a number of senior ministers like P K Shahi, Bhim Singh and Ramai Ram have been insulted by being divested of important portfolios they held earlier and said that had there been another person in their places they would have resigned for ill-treatment meted out to them.
Modi, former deputy chief minister also took exception to the manner in which Bima Bharti was sworn-in as a minister yesterday despite failing to properly read out oath yesterday and urged the Governor to conduct her swearing-in afresh for the sake of propriety.
It will be interesting to find out the ongoing development in the ruling party unfolds in days to come which, he claimed, will have serious bearing on the governance, law and order situation and development in Bihar, he said.
Modi said that Kumar, who resigned from the Chief Minister's post following drubbing in the recently-concluded general elections last month, will not succeed in stemming rebellion in the JD(U).
