BJP to take Lalu Prasad-Nitish Kumar fight to people

PATNA: With Assembly polls due later this year and the merger of Janata Parivar parties virtually in doldrums, BJP has decided to take to the public the verbal duel of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD President Lalu Prasad when they were in opposing camps.

The saffron party has prepared folders containing some of the choicest remarks made by the two leaders against each other, which will be taken by its workers in the door-to-door campaign to be launched across the state on May 26, state party chief Mangal Pandey said today.

The folders contain several statements attributed to Kumar like "Lalu Prasad's political career is the manifesto of Bihar's destruction', "While I am trying to provide power to villages, the elder brother (Prasad) is distributing lanterns" and "Prasad has destroyed the state with 'atankraj' (reign of terror), corruption and now he is trying to do so by indulging in dynastic politics."

On the other hand, Prasad has been quoted saying things like "I prepared Nitish Kumar, but could not gauge that he will come out as a tree of babool (a thorny tree). Otherwise, I would have poured hot water in its roots".

Prasad's statements like "He (Kumar) went to the lap of BJP for greed of power, got case registered against me in the fodder scam, sent me to jail several times and is still indulging in disturbing me" have also been incorporated in the folder.

Releasing the folder, Pandey said, "We have planned a 'maha sampark abhiyan' (huge mass contact campaign) from May 26 to August 31. Our workers will take these folders door-to-door to make people know what Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad used to speak about each other."