‘Nitish reluctant to continue as CM’

Federal minister Upendra Kushwaha has kicked up a major controversy by stating that the Janata Dal-United chief Nitish Kumar doesn’t want to continue as the chief minister after 2020 when the next assembly polls will be held in the state.

Kushwaha who happens to be the federal minister of state for human resources development made this startling revelation while addressing a function in Patna on Wednesday. According him, the Bihar chief minister has reached “saturation point in power and he wants to step down”. He claims the chief minister expressed this wish to him sometime back.

“I am neither doing any politics nor I am making any satirical comment on the chief minister but he (Nitish Kumar) has himself expressed his desire not to continue beyond 2020,” the minister told a function on Wednesday.

“I have ruled for 15 years. How long will I be the CM?” Kushwaha quoted the chief minister as saying at the function claiming Kumar himself had confided to him with “heavy heart” some time back.

He also advised the JD-U leaders to refrain from making comments on their relations or they may land in trouble. “He (Kumar) is my elder brother. None knows him better than me. He too knows me very well. So none should make comments on our relations,” the minister added.

The minister’s comments come weeks after he had suggested the chief minister to vacate the throne. “Mr Nitish Kumar has been serving the state for the past 15 years. I personally feel that he himself should quit the throne to make way for others and himself indulge in bigger politics,” Kushwaha had told a news channel in July this year.

However, the JD-U rejected the claim of the federal minister saying Kumar would continue as the chief minister so long as the people of the state want him. “Kumar became the chief minister after getting the support of the masses and will continue on the throne till then the people want him,” JD-U spokesperson Shyam Rajak said yesterday.