A day after Rajnath Singh’s barbs, Nitish Kumar makes a veiled threat to expose BJP

PATNA: A day after BJP leaders including party chief Rajnath Singh attacked the Bihar chief minister, saying his “political arrogance” had led to the split of a 17-year-old alliance, Nitish Kumar on Monday hit back and said his former ally would land in far greater trouble if he opened his mouth.

“If I open my mouth a lot of people will be in trouble,” Kumar told reporters on the sidelines of a programme here. Two days running, Rajnath Singh took a pot shot at Nitish Kumar. On Monday, without specifying his name, the BJP chief said he had made Narendra Modi the party’s poll panel chief on the advice of some people (read Nitish).

Referring to Kumar’s speech praising Modi during his Gujarat visit in 2003, he told newsmen at the state party office, “some people said Narendra Modi should be inducted into national politics. We have taken the advice by elevating Modi in national politics.” Singh then went on to attack the UPA government and said the country was passing through serious crisis on account of the faltering economy and issues relating to diplomacy and internal security.

“When the NDA was in power, we handed a 8.4 per cent GDP growth rate to the UPA government which has brought it down to 5 per cent. The value of the rupee against dollar continues to depreciate, both the fiscal deficit and the current account deficit have been rising,” Singh said.

The Congress, he said, was trying to divert the attention of the people from real issues by engaging them in a debate on secularism and communalism, and targeting Modi only to camouflage the issues of corruption, financial mismanagement and diplomatic failure. Indirectly cautioning Nitish not to be a victim of the ‘secularitis’ syndrome, Rajnath Sigh said, “I urge the opposition leaders to understand this strategy of the Congress.

It is a conspiracy of the Congress to trap the opposition leaders in the name of so called secularism. Secularitis is a new disease which is being played out by the Congress but those in the opposition should understand their real game plan.” On Nitish being “trapped” by the Congress, the BJP chief said the people should be alert and not fall prey to the actual game plan of the Congress.

Earlier in the day, while speaking at a seminar, Kumar said the Bihar model of development was being discussed globally and even Pakistan’s Imran Khan wanted to adopt this model for the state where his party had been voted to power. “But it has created problems for some of my erstwhile friends who would advocate the model of development of a developed state (Gujarat),” Kumar said, taking a dig at BJP leaders