Embittered by JD(U) snapping ties with NDA, Bihar BJP has decided to expose "duplicity" of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar by playing CDs of his speeches before people in which he "consistently praised" Narendra Modi since the 2002 riots.
"We have a number of CDs in which Kumar has publicly and uninhibitedly praised his Gujarat counterpart and even praised him to the effect that his services and leadership will be beneficial to the country...We have collected all these CDs for display before the people of Bihar so that his duplicity could be exposed thoroughly," senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi told reporters today.
BJP leaders will visit villages and all nooks and corners of Bihar and play all the CDs in which Nitish had praised his Gujarat counterpart on several occasions since the occurrence of 2002 Gujarat riots, he said.
Sushil said Nitish, during a function in Kutch on December 13, 2003, "had downplayed the Gujarat riots a year earlier and said the impressive development in that state should get precedence over the incident which should be buried once and for all."
Dismissing Nitish's defence that his praise of Modi was for the sake of protocol, the former Deputy Chief Minister said, "One sticks to agendas of a particular function in making a speech at an official function and does not talk of sensitive issues and make motivational remarks asking a leader to play a national role."
"The BJP has decided to give a national role to Modi in 2013, but Kumar had forecast a bigger role for the Gujarat Chief Minister a decade back," he said.
Nitish's 2003 speech in praise of Modi is not the only one and BJP has collected many more CDs, which it will display before the people in Bihar and outside to expose his duplicity, he said.
Sushil also sought to flatten Nitish's protocol plea to defend his praise of Modi saying, the same protocol demands that a Chief Minister congratulate his counterpart upon victory in assembly polls, but the Bihar CM gave a go by to that norm by not sending congratulatory message to Modi when he returned to power for third term in 2012 assembly polls.
"If Nitish cares for protocol, he should have shaken hands with Modi out of courtesy during several official engagements, but he chose to ignore the Modi's presence in recent past," Sushil said, adding that Nitish cannot talk about propriety anymore.
Sushil also defended BJP's decision to keep Modi out of political turf in Bihar during 2009 general elections and the assembly polls a year later, apparently under Nitish's diktat, and said there was no restriction on visit of Modi to Bihar at any point of time.
"We contested the polls in Bihar on the strength of our local leaders and under the circumstances, never required the services of Modi," he said.
