Patna: Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and the Bharatiya Janata Party sparred in Bihar yesterday, a day after their 17-year-old alliance ended in bitter acrimony. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said it was difficult to work with BJP’s new leaders while BJP decided to expose his “double-speak”.
Nitish Kumar criticised the BJP’s present leadership, saying it had forgotten its senior leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani and had forced the JD-U to end the alliance.
An angry BJP decided to expose the “doublespeak” of Nitish Kumar over Narendra Modi by distributing CDs of an old video in which he praised the Gujarat chief minister.
The fissures between the BJP and JD-U were triggered by Nitish Kumar’s opposition to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP’s decision to make Modi its public face for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
“BJP has forgotten its old leaders like Vajpayee and Advani, who played a major role in formation of NDA (National Democratic Alliance) and the national agenda that was prepared in the interest of all,” Nitish Kumar said at a press conference here after holding his weekly Janata Darbar.
For the first time since the inception of the Janata Darbar, Nitish Kumar held it without the BJP.
“Vajpayee and Advani’s era had ended in BJP and a new era has begun now. It was difficult for JD-U to work with BJP’s new-era leaders,” Nitish Kumar said.
On Sunday, Nitish Kumar told Governor DY Patil to sack the 11 BJP ministers in his government for non-performance and vowed to prove his majority in the assembly Wednesday.
Nitish Kumar said JD-U’s decision to end the alliance with the BJP was taken after long deliberations within the party.
He reiterated that BJP was responsible for the split in the NDA.
“BJP forced us to end alliance with it,” he insisted.
Sushil Kumar Modi, a senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister, told media persons that “we will expose the doublespeak of Nitish Kumar by distributing CDs of an old video in which Nitish Kumar praised Modi during his visit to Gujarat in 2003, a year after the Gujarat riots”.
IANS
