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BJP puts its MLC on notice after his dare to Nitish
PATNA The BJP has served a show cause on its MLC (member of Legislative Council) Tunna Pandey after his outburst against the Bihar government and chief minister Nitish Kumar in particular
PATNA
The BJP has served a show cause on its MLC (member of Legislative Council) Tunna Pandey after his outburst against the Bihar government and chief minister Nitish Kumar in particular.
“Tunna ji Pandey has been served a show cause notice and asked to reply to in 10 days,” said Vinay Singh, chairperson of state BJP’s disciplinary committee.
Pandey, whose six-year term in the Legislative Council is scheduled to end on July 16, was served the notice after ruling NDA constituents Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular (HAM-S) raised the matter with state BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal.
Tunna Pandey has been in the news over the past few days over allegations that ambulances donated by him from his local area development fund in Siwan were bought at exorbitant prices. A former minister, Vikram Kunwar, wrote to CM Nitish Kumar a couple of days ago demanding a probe into the procurement of 10 ambulances in Siwan district, purchased with funds provided by Pandey and former MLAs Ramesh Singh Kushwaha and Vyasdev Prasad.
On Wednesday, Pandey has alleged that the chief minister was hand-in-glove with liquor smugglers since 2009. “I will ensure he lands in jail and will expose him,” he had said.
The NDA government in the state enjoys a wafer-thin majority. It has 127 MLAs, five more than the majority mark, while the Mahaghatbandhan or the Grand Alliance (GA) has 110 MLAs in Bihar’s 243-member House.
Pandey’s attack on the CM drew swift retaliation from the JD-U. “The BJP has been targeting the chief minister on and off. Nobody can prove corruption charges against Nitish Kumar. Pandey used to trade in liquor and is obviously peeved after Prohibition in the state,” said JD-U state chief spokesperson and MLC Sanjay Singh.
Party’s national principal general secretary K C Tyagi hoped the BJP would not tolerate such acts of indiscipline. “We have been working [together] for decades and the BJP doesn’t tolerate such indiscipline. Nitish Kumar has been the leader of the NDA [in Bihar] for more than 15 years and he has been the choice of PM Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J P Nadda,” said Tyagi.
Spokesperson of HAM-S, Danish Rizwan, too demanded action against the MLC, calling his remarks “highly objectionable”.
However, Pandey remained undeterred. “Nitish Kumar is a circumstantial chief minister, as former MP Shahabuddin rightly said and received punishment for speaking the truth. He (Nitish) is not my leader. I am a BJP leader,” he said on Thursday.
Pandey had earlier also questioned the state government’s decision not to allow Shahabuddin’s burial at Siwan, after he died of Covid early May this year at Tihar jail in Delhi, where he had been serving his sentence in connection with a murder case.
