Supaul : Likening Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to popular comedy show character ‘Mungerilal’ known for day-dreaming, BJP Chief Amit Shah on Monday alleged that he betrayed the saffron party and snapped ties with it over his “greed” for the Prime Minister’s post.
Claiming that Kumar was the first leader to describe the RJD-led government of 15 years as ‘jungle raj’, Shah in a no- holds-barred attack against the senior JD(U) leader said he had no qualms in going back to Lalu Prasad to hang on to the chief minister’s post.
“Nitish Kumar betrayed us two years ago and broke alliance with the BJP in 2013 as he had become greedy for the Prime Minister’s post,” Shah told party workers at a meeting here ahead of the Assembly polls in Bihar.
“We could have made him the PM candidate, but did not do so as his party had presence in only one state–Bihar– and nowhere else,” the BJP President said and alleged that Kumar was fantasizing like ‘Mungeri Lal’, a character of a television serial of the 1990s who was known for day dreaming.
Shah also flayed Kumar for betrayal of the decisive mandate in 2010 Assembly polls saying that the latter did not stop at betraying the BJP, but went on to backstab the electorate by going back to the Prasad, the RJD supremo, whom the voters had rejected in successive Assembly polls.
Kumar also abandoned ‘anti-congress’ plank of the great socialist leaders like Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan and Karpoori Thakur by joining forces with the Congress not only for survival of his government, but to seek a fresh term under the banner of ‘Grand Secular Aliance’, Shah said.
The BJP president said Kumar cannot bring development to Bihar with Lalu Prasad–the architect of’jungle raj’–and Congress, which was rocked by allegations of corruption during UPA rule at the Centre – on either side of his shoulders.
The backwardness of Bihar could be gauged from the fact that the people had to go outside for ‘padhai’ (education), ‘kamai’ (livelihood) and ‘dawai’ (medical treatment) as the state lacked higher education institutions, employment opportunities and quality health services, he said.
Claiming that Bihar has been ruined and pushed into backwardness in post-independence era in which the Congress ruled for 40 years, RJD for 15 years and JD(U) for 10 years, Shah appealed to the electorate to give the BJP-led coalition one chance to rule the state and promised to make it ‘Number One’ state of the country.
Making a firm commitment for development of Bihar, Shah said that the NDA government would do everything at its command for development so that the people did not have to migrate for work and better life elsewhere in the country.
Stating that crime and corruption don’t go hand-in-hand with development, Shah claimed that Bihar would get ‘jungle raj – 2’ if the ‘Grand Secular Alliance’ got the mandate at the hustings.
PTI