Wanted Nitish to be PM, now he will retire as MP: Akhilesh

Lucknow: Describing Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar's decision to relinquish state politics and opt for Rajya Sabha membership as the "biggest political kidnapping" in the state's history, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday said the opposition wanted to make Nitish Kumar the PM but instead he will now retire as MP.

The Janata Dal United leader had sprung a surprise when he quit as chief minister of Bihar and filed his nomination papers to become a member of the Rajya Sabha.


"Nitish Kumar's switch over from chief minister of Bihar to a member of the Rajya Sabha is the biggest ever political kidnapping in the history of Bihar. It is in fact economic kidnapping of Bihar. In ransom, BJP has bargained for the entire Bihar," Akhilesh said.

The former UP CM added that: "Who is next in line is anyone's guess."

"Those who understand politics, they knew from day one how the BJP will go about it," Akhilesh said while talking to the media after an iftar party organised by Minority Development Forum at a prominent hotel on Friday.

‘Crime graph spiraling in UP'

Lucknow: Akhilesh Yadav flayed the UP govt for rising crime graph in the state and said the dispensation has turned a blind eye to the issue and only tables manipulated statistics to pat its back.

He cited the fatal attack on a contractual bus driver of the Uttar Pradesh Road Transport Corporation in Jaunpur and how the prime accused had placed his foot on the victim's neck in the middle of the road to showcase his ‘terror' and the gangrape of a girl in Bulandshahr as blatant examples of how criminals were making a mockery of the police and the law and order machinery in the state.

"The murder of a rape survivor in Azamgarh, chain snatching from women in Sarojninagar and Krishna Nagar areas of Lucknow and girl being shot dead in her sleep at a farmhouse in Chandauli are instances of how the outlaws are having a field day," Akhilesh said in a statement.