"Nitish does not have the moral right to question the secular credentials of Modi as long as he remains a part of NDA," party general secretary Deepankar Bhattacharya told reporters.
Kumar cannot wish away the fact that he was a minister in the NDA government at the Centre for six years and has been sharing power with the BJP in Bihar for the past seven years, he said, expressing amusement at the former's attack on Modi that the NDA's prime ministerial candidate should be a secular person.
Samata Party, of which Kumar was a member, was the first major national party to join forces with the NDA soon after the demolition of Babri mosque. "Kumar's secular soul did not revolt when the Gujarat riots took place in 2002 when he was the Railway minister at the Centre," Bhattacharya said.
"Kumar will never pass the litmus test for secular image by merely questioning the secular credentials of Modi. People of Bihar are unlikely to pat his back for taking on Modi when their own aspirations remain unfulfilled."
Bhattacharya also accused Kumar of compromising his social justice agenda by making truce with the feudal forces, as seen from the hurried manner in which he recommended a CBI probe in murder case of Ranvir Sena chief Brahmeshwar Singh.
He urged Kumar to seek a high-level probe in the murder of alleged terror suspect Md Qateel Siddique, a native of Barh Samaila village in Bihar's Darbhanga district, who was killed by a fellow inmate in Yervada jail in Maharashtra recently.
