Patna

The NDA government in Bihar has come under strain with leaders of the BJP and alliance partner JD(U) trading barbs on social media and threatening to part ways.

National general secretary of BJP OBC wing Nikhil Anand took a swipe at the JD (U) as he tweeted: "The smaller groups cannot understand the working style of big parties. They are not clear about their own identity whether they belong to a small or a big group. The day doesn't seem far when they would have to search for a new place."

Anand's tweet was a thinly veiled reminder to the JD (U) that the BJP which has 74 seats in Bihar Legislative Assembly is the big brother in the alliance and was gracious enough to let Nitish Kumar head the government despite the JD(U) winning only 45 seats in the assembly election in 2020.

Anand did not name any JD(U) leader in his tweet but it did not stop the party’s spokesperson Abhishek Jha from targeting the BJP leader.

"@Nikhil Anand JI: People should give statements according to their stature. If you spit at the sky, it falls on you. Please clean it up. God may help you," he tweeted.

Jha had targeted BJP state chief Sanjay Jaiswal on January 12 when he raised questions over his visit in a village in West Champaran to console family members who lost their loved ones in a liquor tragedy.

After a similar liquor tragedy in chief minister Nitish Kumar’s district of  Nalanda on January 15 which claimed 13 lives, Jaiswal had criticized the Bihar government for the failure of the CM’s pet project of prohibition.

Jaiswal had accused senior officials and the police of being hand in glove with the mafia and said the nexus was responsible for the failure of prohibition in the state.