Bihar polls: Wonder what Sushil Modi will say to shared power with JD(U) in ‘anti-development era’

NEW DELHI: BJP has painted Bihar as a state deprived of development thanks to ‘43 years’ of Congress rule, followed by 25 years of RJD and JD(U) governments, to reinforce the claim that only it can pull the state out of the ‘morass.’ But in the process, it cut its nose to spite its face by including the period when it shared power with JD(U) in the ‘anti-development era.’ Apart from November 2005 to June 2013, when BJP shared power with JD(U), the Jan Sangh too, as a ‘merged entity’ in the Janata Party, was in power in the late 1970s in Patna.

FM Arun Jaitley was asked in Patna if it was an admission that his party leaders in Bihar had failed. “It is an honest assessment of how the government was run,” he replied. This was in stark contrast to what BJP claimed during the LS elections in Bihar that all development work in the state was done by BJP ministers. They had even observed a ‘Vishwas Ghaat Divas to say that while all work was done by BJP, CM Nitish Kumar took all the credit . A senior party leader explained the U- turn: “The state had to be projected as an extremely backward state. It was difficult to explain the 8 years when we were in alliance with JDU,” he told ET.

Further, when Kumar dumped BJP in 2013, it was imperative for the party to defend the performance of its ministers in his government. “At that point we had to stand up for them,” the leader said. He added that it would have been difficult to explain that Bihar was on a trajectory of development till Kumar chose to dump it. “And now he has sided with jungle raaj that we together dislodged,” he explained.