Nitish Kumar may be ousted in a few days: SP leader Mata Prasad Pandey

Ballia (UP), Nov 22 (PTI) Leader of Opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, Mata Prasad Pandey, on Saturday claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may oust Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar from power in the near future.

The senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader also charged that by focusing all its attention on the Hindutva agenda, the BJP wants to transform India into a nation where there is no equality.

Speaking to reporters at a programme organised on the occasion of the birth anniversary of SP patriarch and former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, Pandey targeted the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh.

"The government's policies are not aimed at eliminating unemployment. Their only slogan is Hindutva. They want to run the government in the name of Hindutva and mislead the people by performing religious rituals," he said Responding to a question about BJP's Samrat Chaudhary (Deputy Chief Minister) getting the Home portfolio in Bihar, Pandey claimed that the BJP would dislodge its ally and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar from the helm in the near future.

The NDA swept the recent Bihar assembly election, winning 202 seats in the 243-member assembly. The state's longest-serving Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, was sworn in last Thursday for the record tenth time, though ally BJP was the single largest party.

"Appointing Samrat Chaudhary as Home Minister is their internal decision and may have been made as part of a compromise. We believe that he (Nitish Kumar) may be ousted in a few days," Pandey said.

The SP leader, who has been a former Speaker of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly, said, "The BJP government is not focused on our problems related to unemployment, education and health. Their sole focus is on transforming our nation into a nation without equality by promoting a Hindutva agenda." PTI COR NAV RT RT