Bihar polls: BJP salutes Jayaprakash Narayan, stings Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar

SITABDIARA: The BJP outplayed JD(U) and RJD in the race for Jayaprakash Narayan's (JP) legacy Sunday, with a delegation of party chief Amit Shah, Union ministers Ananth Kumar and Rajiv Pratap Rudy among other MPs and MLAs visiting JP's birthplace Sitabdiara on the socialist leader's birth anniversary.

Shah seized the apparent absence of any neta from RJD and JD(U) -whose chiefs Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar claim they're the inheritors of JP's legacy -in the village to say, "Nitish and Lalu have always exploited JP's name... Today they've compromised with his ideology... He led the movement to free the country from Congress and corruption. My heart bleeds to see his followers of years (Lalu and Nitish) have joined hands with Congress just to remain in power.

Mandavi Verma (Punni), a family member of JP, said while Lalu's never visited the place, Nitish would visit "till a couple of years ago at least twice". "But neither has he come today nor sent the village any message," said Punni.

Shah appealed to the vil lages to revive `sampoorna kranti': "As a tribute to JP, take a vow to uproot the government not bothered about the welfare of the deprived."

He responded to the villagers' long-pending demand for an embankment to prevent river erosion by saying that the project was stalled because of differences between UP and Bihar and once his party "formed government in Bihar in November and next year in UP", the issue would be taken care of."After that Bihar and UP will work like brothers and end the problem of erosion."