He can get me shot, can’t do anything else: Nitish on Lalu’s ‘visarjan’ claim

Patna, Oct 26: Janata Dal (United) supremo Nitish Kumar on Tuesday took a jibe at Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Yadav over the latter's "visarjan" remark.

"He can get me shot. He can't do anything else. If he wants, he can get me shot..." Nitish Kumar said, when asked by reporters about RJD leader Lalu Yadav's statement 'I will ensure 'visarjan' of Nitish Kumar, NDA govt in Bihar'.

Earlier in the day, the RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, who recently returned to Bihar, said that he will be campaigning for the upcoming by-elections to two Assembly seats and will ensure the "visarjan" of Kumar and the ruling NDA in the state.

"I had missed two elections due to my illness and detention. The love of Bihar helped me to recover from my illness. I will be campaigning at Kusheshwar Asthan (SC) and Tarapur on October 27," Lalu told ANI.

Weathered by old age and ill-health, RJD president Lalu Prasad on Sunday returned to his home turf of Bihar from where imprisonment in fodder scam cases had kept him away for three years.

Prasad was last seen here in September 2018, after which he returned to Ranchi to serve his sentences upon expiry of the period of his bail, granted to attend elder son Tej Pratap's wedding and extended a number of times to help him avail medical treatment.

The former Union minister has made it clear that he intends to take part in the campaign for October 30 by-polls to Tarapur and Kusheshwar Asthan assembly seats.

By-elections to the two seats have been necessitated by deaths of the respective MLAs, both belonging to the JD(U) of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Prasad's arch-rival.

The RJD has the largest number of MLAs in the 243-strong assembly and it has been claiming that it will wrest the two seats from the ruling NDA and trigger a khela (upheaval) in the state's politics.

However, the party has got caught in a quagmire with its old ally, the Congress which accused the RJD of betraying the coalition dharma and fielded its own candidates for both seats.

The Congress has also announced that it will go it alone in Bihar in the Lok Sabha elections of 2024.