Bihar CM accuses Centre of demanding the return of Rs 1,010 crore give to the state for tackling Kosi floods.
With less than a week left for the result of the Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) today staged a show of unity at a huge election rally in Ludhiana where all its alliance partners supported Lal Krishna Advani as their prime ministerial choice.
The show of unity was aimed at dispelling speculations about a rift in the NDA and particularly to snub the rival parties, which were claiming to have weaned away the Janata Dal (United) from the NDA fold. Both Nitish Kumar, JD(U) chief minister of Bihar, and JD(U) president Sharad Yadav attended the meeting along with Chandra Shekhar Rao of the Telengana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), the latest entrant to the NDA.
Speaking at the rally, Advani said he was not perturbed over the talk in the Congress and other parties to keep the BJP out of power. “I have heard this talk before too,” he said, adding the experience of 2004 Lok Sabha elections had taught his party not to take the media hype seriously. “We were the victims of over-confidence and media hype in 2004 and this time we are not perturbed over what others say,” he said.
Those who attended the rally included Ajit Singh of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLS), Chandramohan Patwari (Asom Gana Parishad), Bimal Gurung (Gorkha National Liberation Front), Manohar Joshi (Shiv Sena) and Om Prakash Chautala (Indian National Lok Dal. BJP National President Rajnath Singh, general secretary Sushma Swaraj and all chief ministers of the NDA-ruled states, including Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, also attended the meeting.
As all eyes were on Nitish Kumar. He dropped a bombshell by accusing the Centre of recently demanding the return of Rs 1,010 crore, which was given to Bihar for managing the humanitarian crisis after last year’s Kosi floods.
He alleged that within 20 minutes of polling in the Kosi belt being over on April 20, his government had received a letter from the central government to this effect.