The BJP on Friday sacked its recalcitrant Bihar MLC Tunnaji Pandey whose utterances against chief minister and Janata Dal United leader Nitish Kumar were putting a strain on the tenuous relations between the two alliance partners.

State BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal issued Pandey’s order of suspension, copies of which have been made available to the media, a day after the legislator was issued a showcause notice by disciplinary committee head Vinay Singh.

Jaiswal has pulled up Pandey for having spoken “in violation of party discipline”, without making a specific mention of Nitish, and referred to the showcause notice.

The action came after Pandey insisted on Thursday that he was stating a fact and, when asked about the party notice, remarked: “I will reply to it when I receive the same. At the most, the party can throw me out. I do not depend on the party for running my household.”

The row started earlier this week with Pandey taking potshots at Nitish over gangster and former Siwan MP Muhammad Shahabuddin’s death from Covid-19 in Tihar jail in Delhi.

“Shahabuddin’s body could have been brought to Siwan for burial if Nitish wanted to. Recently, the body of a Covid victim was brought to Bihar from Sikkim, but the body of Shahabuddin, who was a four-time MP and twice an MLA was disposed of in Delhi on the pretext of Covid protocol,” Pandey said.

He further said that Shahabuddin was punished for speaking the truth about Nitish being “a chief minister of circumstances”.

“It is true that Nitish is a chief minister of circumstances. Presently he is holding the post despite representing the third largest party, while previously he was the chief minister while his JDU was the second largest party in the state. I will never say Nitish Kumar zindabad. He is not fit to be our leader because he never contests polls,” Pandey said.

A couple of days later he followed this up by tweeting that the public had chosen Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav as the chief minister “but Nitish ji is ruling today by misusing the government machinery”.

Pandey also accused Nitish of being in nexus with the liquor mafia. “He (Nitish) indulged in a liquor scam in 2009I will get him sent to jail soon for this.”

The two parties have been attacking each other intermittently since the Assembly elections held last year.

The JDU accused the BJP of conniving with Chirag Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party to ensure that Nitish’s party gets fewer seats.

Pandey’s statements were enough to infuriate JDU leaders. The party’s parliamentary board chairman Upendra Kushwaha on Wednesday questioned the silence of the BJP state leadership on the issue. “This statement must have been reaching you Sanjay Jaiswal ji (Bihar BJP unit president). Had any JDU leader given such a statement about the BJP or any of its leader… then…,” Kushwaha tweeted.

JDU MLC and spokesperson Sanjay Singh said: “He (Pandey) was a liquor trader. He has come into politics accidentally. People should not lose their nature and behaviour in politics. Nobody has taken birth who can send Nitish Kumar to jail because he has never indulged in corruption. Everybody knows that Pandey’s brother is an RJD MLA and he has been doing everything to help the Opposition party despite being in the BJP. We cannot tolerate anybody abusing our leader (Nitish). It is up to the BJP to take cognisance and action on the issue.”

Pandey has always been surrounded by controversies. He was accused of eve-teasing while travelling in a train to Bihar and was arrested. Former minister Vikram Kunwar accused him recently of swindling public money by purchasing ambulances that normally cost around Rs 7 lakh each at Rs 22 lakh.

Kunwar has written a letter to Nitish about the alleged scam in the purchase of ambulances and the chief minister’s office has sought a report on the issue.

“Pandey was elected to the Legislative Council in 2015 and his six-year term is ending in July this year. He could be attacking Nitish in an attempt to get close to the Opposition parties and get a ticket for the upcoming elections to the upper House of the legislature,” a BJP leader told The Telegraph on the condition of anonymity.

BJP spokesperson and former MLA Prem Ranjan Patel said: “The statements made by Pandey are his personal opinion. He has moved away from our party and is never called to our meetings. However, he has not been suspended from the party.”