BJP to release CDs of Nitish praising Modi

Bitter over JD(U) snapping its 17-year- old alliance, the BJP today decided to expose "duplicity" of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over Narendra Modi by publicly releasing CDs of his speeches in which he "consistently praised" his Gujarat counterpart since the 2002 riots.

"We have a number of CDs in which Kumar has publicly and uninhibitedly praised his Gujarat counterpart and even praised him to the effect that his services and leadership will be beneficial to the country...We have collected all these CDs for display before the people of Bihar so that his duplicity could be exposed thoroughly," BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi told reporters, a day after BJP and JD(U) parted ways.

BJP leaders will visit villages and all nook and corner of Bihar and play all the CDs in which Nitish had praised Modi on several occasions since the post-Godhra riots, he said.

Sushil said Nitish, at a function in Kutch on December 13, 2003, "had downplayed the Gujarat riots a year earlier and said the impressive development in that state should get precedence over the incident which should be buried once and for all."

Defending himself, Nitish, who was the Railway Minister at that time, cited protocol issues for his remarks.

"The protocol says that in government function a union minister is not supposed to criticise a state government."

"As a union minister are we supposed to make political speech at an official function?" he asked.

"When I used to visit other states as a railway minister, those speeches were never political. It's part of the protocol to praise the host state and not to speak against them," Nitish added.

Dismissing Nitish's defence that his praise of Modi was for the sake of protocol, Sushil, the former Deputy Chief Minister said, "One sticks to agenda of a particular function in making a speech at an official function and does not talk of sensitive issues and make motivational remarks asking a leader to play a national role."

"The BJP has decided to give a national role to Modi in 2013, but Kumar had forecast a bigger role for the Gujarat Chief Minister a decade back," he said.

Nitish's 2003 speech in praise of Modi is not the only one and BJP has collected many more CDs, which it will play before the people in Bihar and outside to expose his duplicity, he added.

"If Nitish cares for protocol, he should have shaken hands with Modi out of courtesy during several official engagements, but he chose to ignore Modi's presence in recent past," Sushil said, adding that Nitish cannot talk about propriety anymore.