Snollygoster: Shashi Tharoor's 'Word of the Day' jibe as Nitish jumps ship again

Congress leader and Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor has taken a jibe at JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar after the latter decided to switch sides and join the BJP-led NDA after he himself had gone meeting Opposition parties to form a coalition that could take on the ruling saffron party at the Centre.

Tharoor shared one of his posts on X from 2017, where he had chosen the word 'Snollygoster' as the word of the day. The post was made when Nitish had switched sides to the BJP in 2017.

Tharoor in his tweet had defined the word as "a shrewd, unprincipled politician" while adding that it was most recently used on '26/7/17' in an apparent dig at Nitish switching sides.

Today the former union minister said, "<Sigh!> Didn’t realise it would be the Word of Another Day too !"

Tharoor was not the only Congress leader to take a jibe at Nitish Kumar after the recent turn of events.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Sunday criticised Nitish Kumar's recent volte-face, branding him as an "expert in betraying", and emphasised the irony of his decision to join the BJP-led NDA camp after being instrumental in conceptualising the opposition bloc INDIA.

Kumar on Sunday resigned as the Chief Minister of Bihar, saying "things were not working well" for him in the Mahagathbandhan he had joined less than 18 months ago and the opposition bloc I.N.D.I.A.

Ramesh remarked that Kumar's tendency to change political colours rivals that of 'chameleons' and suggested that the political upheaval in Bihar is a tactic to divert attention from the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, scheduled to enter Bihar on Monday.

"The resignation of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is not at all surprising because he has been changing political colours from time to time. And in changing colours, he is giving tough competition to the chameleons. The people of Bihar will give a befitting reply to him and also to those people in Delhi who are behind it", he said at a press conference in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri.

With PTI inputs