‘Nitish not team player, won’t forgive’
New Delhi, Nov. 9: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar was prime ministerial material but was disappointing in “terms of his democratic behaviour” as a team person, his one-time colleague in the Samata Party Jaya Jaitly has said.
The activist-turnedauthor also lashed out at the chief minister for his “lack of humanity” towards elders, particularly his mentor George Fernandes, who co-founded the Samata party along with Nitish Kumar in 1994.
In 2003, the bulk of the party merged with the Janata Dal (United). Ms Jaitly, former president of the Samata Party, was speaking at the launch of her book “Life Among the Scorpions” on Wednesday. She described Mr Kumar as “disappointing” at best.
“There was a time when I felt that he was prime
ministerial material... He was trained and administratively keen. But from the time we worked together I kept seeing more and more of a person who was disappointing in terms of his democratic behaviour,” she said. But what she really cannot forgive him for is his “lack of humanity” towards elders. In 2009, then NDA convenor Fernandes, described by Ms Jaitly as a “politician par excellence”, was denied a ticket by the JD(U) for the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar. When Fernandes fought the election as an independent candidate from Muzaffarpur, he was expelled from the party.
“I remember sitting with George saab when Farooq Abdullah phoned him and said ‘not to send Jagmohan as governor of state otherwise he will quit,” she added.