Having secured his government by winning the number game on the floor of the house, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday let loose a fusillade of verbal attack on his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi. ‘BJP workers are getting excited about a wave created by one of their leaders (Narendra Modi)...it is nothing but wave created by corporate houses which will be short lived and cannot do any magic in 2014,’ said Kumar.
The Bihar chief minister also questioned the BJP’s attempt to portray Modi as a OBC leader to garner OBC and extremely backward caste votes. ‘Just by being born in an OBC family one cannot become their leader. A person who is the well-wisher of corporate houses does not become leader of OBC just like that,’ said Kumar.
Critical of his former ally, Kumar said that the BJP had sensed a break-up might be coming, so even before the alliance was broken they had started organising caste meetings. Kumar said that while addressing a meeting of the BJP extremely backward caste cell, former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi had observed that the Gujarat leader has a similar background and cannot be stopped from becoming the prime minister.
While Kumar had a smooth sailing in getting the required number of votes, new alignments were witnessed as four Congress MLAs and one CPI MLA voted in favour of the government, apart from four independents. JD(U) got 126 votes and 24 votes were cast against it which included 22 of RJD and two Independents. The BJP legislators walked out before the trust vote could take place.
The Bihar chief minister, in his speech, used every opportunity to target Modi, as he criticised the developmental model of Gujarat. ‘The truth is that in a developed state like Gujarat the minimum wage is only Rs 100 per day while in the backward state of Bihar the same is Rs 162,’ said Kumar.