Patna, Apr 14: A day after Nitish Kumar loyalists adopted a resolution seeking expulsion from the party, five senior leaders owing allegiance to Samata President George Fernandes today struck a belligerent note against the railway minister accusing him of running the organisation "like a dictator" and charged him with hobnobbing with Laloo Prasad Yadav's RJD and the Congress. "Nitish Kumar, by his dictatorial style, has brought the party to the verge of a split", senior party MP and former Bihar Unit Chief Raghunath Jha told a press conference here asserting that the struggle by the genuine party workers to oust Nitish Kumar would continue. Flanked by his Lok Sabha colleague Brahmanand Mandal, Bihar MLAs Bhai Birendra and Ganesh Paswan and MLC P K Sinha, whom the Nitish Kumar faction had yesterday expelled, Jha dubbed yesterday's meetings of the state executive, council and legislature party called by state Convenor Bashist Narain Singh, MP, as illegal and unconstitutional. Singh had no right to convene the meetings as he was appointed Convenor of the state committee as an ad hoc arrangement to look after the membership drive and facilitate internal elections of the party, Jha said.

We will organise meetings across the state to tell the party workers that the Samata is on the brink of a split only because of Kumar, he said.


Meanwhile, Fernandes, who was in the state capital for a few hours maintained a stoical silence on the developments in the party. He refused to speak to waiting media persons at the airport where he arrived from Dhanbad and at the Patna railway station where he boarded train for New Delhi. Bureau Report