After he was not renominated for elections to the Rajya Sabha from Bihar, Shivanand Tiwari, a Rajya Sabha MP from the ruling Janata Dal-United, Wednesday said Chief Minister Nitish Kumar disliked him.

 

 "I know Nitish Kumar does not like me," Tiwari said in a letter to state JD-U president Vashisht Narain Singh. Tiwari said two other party Rajya Sabha MPs were also not renominated so that he could be kept out.

 

 "In a bid to deny me a place in the Rajya Sabha, two other party MPs – N.K. Singh and Sabir Ali – were also not renominated to justify the act of leaving me out," he said. He alleged that Nitish Kumar's offer to him to contest the Lok Sabha polls was a political strategy to defeat him.

 

 Tiwari was earlier considered close to Nitish Kumar. However, he was last year removed as party spokesman, and is now not seen in the company of the chief minister at official functions or party meetings.

 

 The JD-U has announced the nomination of three new faces for the elections to five Rajya Sabha seats from the state. The party nominated Ramnath Thakur, Harivansh and Kahkashan Perween as its candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls to be held Feb 7.

 

 Thakur is the son of former chief minister Karpoori Thakur. Harivansh is editor-in-chief of Hindi newspaper Prabhath Khabar while Perween is also a JD-U leader.

 

 Following Tiwari's outburst against Nitish Kumar, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Giriraj Singh said Tiwari "was punished by Nitish Kumar for praising BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi".

 

 Last year, Tiwari said that the rise of a tea vendor from a backward caste was impressive.

 

 Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Ram Kirpal Yadav said Tiwari was an honest leader with a mindset to work for social justice. He, however, did not say whether Tiwari was welcome to rejoin the RJD as he was in that party before joining JD-U.