In a statement here, Modi charged the chief minister with getting the legal notice served on him through a party leader "after the removal of the mask on the Shahabuddin issue".
"I stand by what I had said that Nitish Kumar had no reservation regarding Mohammad Shahabuddin and wanted to give ticket to his wife after enrolling her in the JD(U)," Modi, whose party BJP was a coalition partner of JD(U) at that time, said.
"In the legal notice, the BJP leader has been asked to reply within 15 days or be prepared to face a case of defamation," Kumar said.
Modi said in his statement that if Nitish Kumar had any reservation about Shahabuddin, then "why did the state government not support lawyer Prashant Bhusan's plea in the Supreme Court to keep him (Shahabuddin) out of Bihar?"
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"Would Nitish Kumar stop lawyer Ram Jethmalani, who became a member of Rajya Sabha on an RJD ticket with the help of JD(U), from fighting Shahabuddin's case in the Supreme Court?" Modi, who was the deputy chief minister during the NDA rule in the state, asked.
made it clear that there was no talk of building any barrage between Varanasi to Haldia (NW-1), Sushil Modi said.
He also questioned the Bihar Chief Minister's protest when the state government has already given its consent for the said Waterways.
He quoted a letter written by Inland Waterways Authority of India Chairman Amitabh Verma to Bihar Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh in January last which said, "The consent of Government of Bihar was duly obtained for the notification of six rivers for declared as national waterway viz MW 37 (Gandak), 54 (Karmnasa), 58 (Kosi), 81 (Punpun) and 94 (Sone)."