Ram Vilas Paswan questions Nitish on continuing ties with NDA

NAWADA: With Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi emerging as a key player in BJP in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls, LJP president Ram Vilas Paswan today asked Nitish Kumar to part with the party as he had promised earlier.

"Modi has emerged as an important leader in BJP in the run up to the general elections and may as well be declared its prime ministerial candidate... What else is Nitish waiting for to severe ties with BJP as he had promised to do so earlier?" Paswan said while talking to reporters here.

Noting that the Bihar CM never takes Modi's name in public as a reason for him to snap ties with the BJP, Paswan claimed that it was obvious that Kumar wanted to stick to the NDA for his "greed of power".

On Kumar's praise of senior BJP leader L K Advani, the Lok Janshakti Party supremo said there was no difference between Modi and Advani, further alleging that Modi was responsible for the Guajarat riots and Advani for the demolition of Babri mosque in Ayodhya in 1992.

Commenting on the political situation at the Centre after DMK's withdrawal of support to the UPA government, Paswan said the central government's future hinged on the outcome of the assembly polls in the five states later this year.

Accusing the UPA government of misusing CBI to keep a check on its allies, Paswan demanded that the investigative agency be granted autonomy to function on its own.