Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav has asserted that he was not in a hurry to occupy the highest seat of power in the state and advised leaders of his Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) to refrain from speaking on the issue.
Yadav was reacting to RJD state president Jagadanand Singh's recent statement in Delhi that the young leader will become the chief minister by next year, which appears to have consternated some leaders in the JD(U), the party of the incumbent Nitish Kumar.
"I have no personal ambition nor am I in a hurry. Supporters tend to go overboard but this is not the time when we should be thinking who will be the CM in the future," Yadav told reporters on Friday.
"We must remain focused on dislodging from power Fascist forces represented by the BJP. We have accomplished that in Bihar. The same needs to be achieved nationally," he said.
Asserting that Nitish Kumar is the chief minister and the leader of the multi-party Mahagathbandhan, Yadav said that the JD(U) leader too wants to defeat the BJP without wanting anything for himself in return.
"We all must rise to the occasion," he added. Jagadanand Singh had said on Thursday that Nitish Kumar will devote himself to national politics by 2023 when Yadav will take over as his successor.
JD(U) parliamentary board chief Upendra Kushwaha took a dig at Singh, likening the veteran RJD leader to an "aging father who is desperate to marry off his children some way or the other".
Kushwaha however asserted that the state RJD president's words were not indicative of any rift with the JD(U) and discarded the claim of BJP leaders like former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi that a "deal" has been struck between the two Mahagathbandhan partners.
Modi has claimed that Kumar, after ditching BJP, survived in power courtesy the "deal" with RJD supremo Lalu Prasad who agreed to support the JD(U) leader though his own party's strength in the assembly was nearly twice as much as that of the latter.
(With PTI Inputs)
