Modi shuts out Nitish from speech, snubs him

Agencies

Patna, 13 June 2010: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday praised people of Bihar and criticised Congress president Sonia Gandhi in his speech at a BJP rally here. There is one name he did not mention at all though: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Kumar, whose Janata Dal-United (JD-U) party runs the state government in alliance with the BJP, had on Saturday expressed his outraged at newspaper advertisements showing him with Modi. He cancelled a dinner he was to host for senior BJP leaders, who are visiting Patna to attend a two-day meeting of the party’s national executive.

 

 

On Sunday, it was Modi’s turn to settle scores. He did not name Kumar even once in his speech and praised BJP leader and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi for Bihar’s development.

Modi said, "Jis prakar se Sushilji ne vitya ki management ki hai, financial discipline laaya hai, main Sushilji ko badhai dena chahta hoon. (The way in which Sushil Kumar has managed the finances and brought in financial discipline, I want to congratulate him.)

Striking a chord with Bihar, Modi invoked socialist leader and Nitish Kumar’s political guru Jai Prakash Narain.

Modi said, "It was the socialist leader Jai Prakash Narayan from Bihar who led the ’Navnirman’ agitation against the then Congress governement in Gujarat. It was in Gujarat the JP gave the call for total revolution against the Emergency."

In a bid to reach out to the people of Bihar, Modi spoke in Bhojpuri in the rally.

He took the opportunity to thank people of Bihar for their help to his state during the 2001 earthquake.

Modi said: "Aaj 2001 ke us ghatna ke baad, jab pehli baar robarroo aaya hoon, main Bihar ke madad ke liye man se dhanyavad karta hoon." (Today after 2001, this is the first time I have come together with Bihar. And, I would like to thank them with all sincerity for the help they provided.)

This too was a dig at Kumar, who had criticised the Gujarat Chief Minister for listing the contributions his government had made for Kosi flood victims in 2008.

Kumar has threatened legal action against the agency that released the full-page advertisements in local newspapers. The advertisement, published in the name of dozens of people of Bihar who are now settled in Gujarat, projected Modi as a close friend of Nitish Kumar and highlighted the Gujarat government’s help after the Kosi floods.

The Gujarat government released another advertisement in dailies on Sunday but this time it contained a photograph of Modi and a list of development programmes being run by his government.

JD-U president Sharad Yadav on Sunday said the advertisement controversy was over and that his party had "old ties" with the BJP.

Yadav said in New Delhi the controversy over the advertisement "took place yesterday (Saturday)" and "it was over".
"Both the parties have old ties," he said.