No differences with Nitish, says Bihar CM

Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi has denied differences with senior Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar amid reports that party president Sharad Yadav has arrived here to broker peace between them.

“Nitish Kumar and I are deeply attached to each other, and there have been no differences between us,” said Mr. Manjhi in Gaya while blaming the media for stirring a controversy.

Addressing presspersons on the sidelines of a programme, the Chief Minister said, “He [Nitish Kumar] has been looking after party affairs and he [himself] running the government.”

Expressing pain over some media reports which said that his wife had prayed for a second term for him during the Chhath festival, Mr. Manjhi said it was a “complete lie and motivated news.”

Mr. Manjhi had earlier declared that the next Chief Minister should also come from Gaya, his hometown.

After Mr. Manjhi’s recent statement that as Chief Minister, he sometimes felt scared taking hard decisions, the Bihar BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member C.P. Thakur invited Mr. Manjhi to join the party “if he was feeling suffocated in the JD(U).”

Though Mr. Manjhi immediately dismissed the offer saying that there was no question of him joining a “communal party like the BJP,” his absence from a meeting of JD(U) legislators, MPs and other leaders at Mr. Nitish Kumar’s residence held recently to make arrangements for his Sampark [contact] Yatra from November 13 indicated the growing chasm between the two leaders.

The BJP said the simmering differences between the two had been affecting the running of the administration.

Amid all these reports, Mr. Sharad Yadav reached Patna on Thursday and met Nitish Kumar. He met some of the key Ministers of the Manjhi Cabinet on Friday reportedly to broker peace between the two. Mr. Yadav said he had come to “discuss the political situation of Jharkhand where elections have been announced,” but added that “if he comes to know of any differences between the party leaders, he will solve it in this visit.”

On Friday, Mr. Nitish Kumar again met party leaders from districts and other places at his residence reportedly to discuss the arrangements for the Sampark Yatra.