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Just a day after Janta Dal-United (JD-U) broke its alliance with Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), war of words intensified between the former partners.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today accused the saffron party of betraying its allies and more importantly "its elders".
Meanwhile, the BJP alleged the CM of having double standards.
Kumar took on BJP over the recent L K Advani issue and accused it of betraying its own "elders".
"They (BJP leaders) talk about betrayal," Chief Minister told reporters on the sidelines of his weekly "Janta Durbar", "but they have betrayed their own elders. They forgot Atal-Advani era, they forgot their elders. How can they accuse us of betrayal? They talk about Indian culture. Indian culture teaches us to respect our elders, but they sideline theirs. Which culture is this?"
Kumar said that his party was left with "no alternate" and maintained that the decision to part ways with BJP was not taken in "haste" and happened "after due deliberations at an appropriate time". "
We gave them enough time to deliberate and chose a new leader," he said, "and we also made it very clear that which type of leader is acceptable for us. But the outcome of Goa meet made it difficult for us to continue an alliance with BJP. The writing on wall was very clear. Further waiting over it would have been cheating ourselves." Nitish Kumar alleged that BJP central leadership were not in a position to give any assurance and were only asked him to put on hold a decision to split.
Kumar said, "The break up is BJP's failure. They wanted to impose their decision on us. An alliance does not run on compulsions. They created a situation in which old allies walk out. If a party wants to form a government, the responsibility is of the party to get support from other parties. Here an old ally was forced to leave." He stated that "external interferences" in the BJP state unit further forced his hands. "In the earlier era state BJP unit had the liberty of functioning as per the need of the state. The collation ran smoothly as long as there were no "external interferences". However, in the new era within BJP left us with no options. We cannot accept their new order," said Kumar.
Nitish also clarified on his 2003 speech in Gujarat, where he praised Narendra Modi. He said praising was a part of the protocol. "I used to visits several states as the then Railway Minister in NDA government. I participated in several government programmes with other chief ministers. Political speeches are not given in government programmes. The praise was a part of the protocol."
Meanwhile, the BJP has accused Bihar CM of having double standards. His former deputy and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said the way BJP ministers were sacked from Nitish Government was "very insulting". Modi said, "Chief Minister says that he was forced to sack us because we were not reporting for duty. Then he did not sack one of his cabinet colleagues, who skipped office for a fortnight while the person was contesting by-election from Maharajganj." On the charge that saffron party has betrayed its elder leaders, the former deputy chief minister said, "We always take care of our elders, but Kumar should answer the way he treated veteran socialist leader George Fernandes."
