Janata Parivar merger will have no impact on Bihar polls: BJP

PATNA: Stating that the new alliance would have no impact on the Bihar assembly elections, BJP today trashed the merger talks of Janata Parivar parties even as it put chief minister Nitish Kumar in dock for "meeting leaders convicted for scams".

"Whatever merger or alliance of Janata Parivar parties happen, it will not be able to stop the rolling of BJP chariot in Bihar. People will themselves ask and decide whether prime minister Narendra Modi is bad and RJD Chief Lalu Prasad is good," said senior BJP leader and former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi.

Sushil Modi was speaking here on the occasion of former JD(U) leader and MLC Devesh Chandra Thakur joining the saffron party.

Slamming Kumar over "deteriorating law and order", the BJP leader said how the chief minister could shake hands with Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad under whose 15 years regime "people (of the state) outside used to feel ashamed to identify themselves as Biharis".

"Those 15 years were a time when kidnapping surfaced as an industry, massacres happened in central Bihar and crime was at its extreme. I want to ask Kumar how he could shake hands with the same Prasad by violating the three-fourth majority given to BJP and JD (U) by the public," he added.

"Kumar has been meeting leaders convicted for scams. He met former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala in jail. Even Prasad is a convicted person and is out on bail. He could go back to jail anytime. I want to ask whether he will run the government with these kind of people," Modi said.

Speaking on the occasion, leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, Nand Kishore Yadav pooh-poohed the merger claims of the six Janata Parivar parties Janata Dal (United), Samajwadi Party, RJD, Janata Dal (Secular), Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and Samajwadi Janata Party (SJP).