Javadekar hits out at Nitish, Lalu; accuses them of ‘caste politics’

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday blamed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad headed grand alliance for doing “politics of caste” in the poll-bound state.

Taking potshots at the leaders, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said both Kumar and Prasad were champions of caste politics themselves and were blaming the BJP, which is synonymous to development in the country.

Javadekar said: “Kumar is accusing the BJP of promoting caste-based politics, which is totally unacceptable as the BJP government is synonymous to development. When BJP was part of the Bihar government, the GDP was increasing and the moment we snapped ties, crime graph in the state has gone up.”

Taking a jibe at Kumar, Javadekar said: “Since the days of Bihar Chief Minister are numbered, he has started talking without applying his mind. When he was part of NDA, then how BJP and RSS were good? Kumar has lost his control.”

The Union minister also took a dig at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi over his visit to the US, saying that it may be a “forced vacation” as allies JD(U) and RJD wanted him out of the Bihar poll campaign. “It may be possible that partners of grand alliance might have asked Rahul to keep away from the Bihar assembly polls as it’s a proven fact that wherever he had visited, the party has lost election badly,” Javadekar said on the sidelines of the press conference.