Nitish Kumar wanted to be Vice-President of India: Sushil Kumar Modi

Nitish Kumar wanted to be the vice-president of the country and has national ambitions, BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi said on Thursday as he listed possible reasons for the JDU chief to split with the BJP.

Modi said Nitish Kumar didn’t drop any hints as to the discontent he had with his ally BJP, and he dismissed media reports suggesting he was in talks with RJD when Union Minister Amit Shah enquired.

The Rajya Sabha MP said it was his party that made Kumar the Bihar Chief Minister despite getting just 43 seats, way below the BJP tally.

Sushil Kumar Modi, believed to be close to Kumar when he was the Deputy CM, said when Shah asked Kumar if he had any problem, he replied in the negative and blamed Lalan Singh for speculation about his forging an alliance with Lalu Yadav’s party.

“We had not sensed much discomfort in JD(U). Even when Union home minister Amit Shah talked to Nitish Kumar on phone Monday and asked if there was any problem, Nitish ji did not say anything and said ‘Just as you have Giriraj Singh in your party, we have Lalan Singh’,” The Indian Express quoted Modi as saying.

He claimed Nitish Kumar’s aides had approached the BJP saying he wanted to become the Vice-President of India.

Modi said during his stint as a BJP ally, he wouldn’t complain much but he had once made passing references to Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha against whom he held a grudge.

Sushil Kumar Modi said Nitish Kumar dumped BJP as he couldn’t be the prime ministerial candidate because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said he quit because he nursed national ambition.

Nitish Kumar took oath as the Chief Minister of Bihar for a record eighth time, hours after he quit and join hands with RJD’s de-facto leader Tejashwi Yadav.