BJP suspends ‘accused’ partyman for six years
NEW DELHI/PATNA: Hours after Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi assured strict action against the main accused in the Muzaffarpur hit-and-run case, the BJP state unit suspended its junior-level leader Manoj Baitha from the party’s primary membership for six years with immediate effect.
Baitha’s Bolero was involved in the accident that resulted in the death of nine students on Saturday. State public health engineering department minister and BJP spokesperson Vinod Narayan Jha announced the decision, taken at a party meeting, late on Monday night.
Earlier in the day, Congress president Rahul Gandhi had attacked Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar over the alleged involvement of a state BJP leader in the accident.
“An inebriated BJP leader killed 9 innocent children in ‘liquor-free’ Bihar! Nitishji, is this the reality of your prohibition?” Gandhi wrote on Twitter.
“Who is your conscience protecting today — the accused BJP leader or the truth about liquor in Bihar?” he asked. Gandhi’s conscience jibe at Kumar came seven months after the chief minister in July last year broke away from Bihar’s Grand Alliance of Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress that had won the 2015 state assembly elections.
“I heard the voice of my conscience and decided to pull myself out of this coalition,” Kumar had then said, referring to RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his son Tejashwi Yadav’s alleged involvement in a landfor-hotels scam.
Sharing till then a good rapport with Gandhi who had repeatedly praised him for his governance and clean image, Kumar was widely believed to be the Opposition’s face against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
However, his yet another political somersault that revived his ties with friendturned-foe-turned-friend BJP surprised political circles for he had taken a moral high ground in June 2013 while breaking his 17-year-old tie with the BJP over the naming of Modi as its PM candidate ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.