Shotgun fires salvo against Sushil Modi, defends Lalu

Sinha asks party leader to refrain from negative politics

Veteran BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha on Monday came down heavily against his party member Sushil Modi while defending ‘friend’ Lalu Prasad Yadav.

The move saw immediate retaliatory action from Sushil, the former deputy chief minister, who demanded that the ‘Shatru’ (enemy) of the BJP be kicked out of the party immediately.

Asking Sushil to refrain from indulging in “negative politics”, four-term MP Sinha tweeted: “Time to substantiate your claims... or pack up! Can’t just keep feeding media with one night stories & sensationalising. Enough is enough (sic).”

Sinha, who enjoys far more cordial relations with leaders like Lalu and Nitish Kumar than other BJP colleagues, was miffed with Sushil’s series of charges against the RJD chief and his family.

Expressing shock over the media reports of income tax raids at 22 places of Lalu and his aides, the Lok Sabha member from Patna Sahib hoped that there should be follow-up reports as to what had been unearthed so far.

“Our BJP surely believes in honesty & transparency, which seldom go together, but must go together. An allegation is ONLY THAT unless proved! (sic),” read Sinha’s another tweet. Sinha, who served as a cabinet minister in the Vajpayee regime and won the 2014 Lok Sabha polls with highest margin in Bihar, was denied ministerial berth in the Narendra Modi government, apparently due to his closeness with L K Advani.

“When allies like Nitish have refrained from defending Lalu, the BJP’s Shatru has jumped in to defend the RJD chief in dubious land deals. Such traitors should be shown the door,” Sushil, who was pained due to a series of attacks from the ‘enemy within’, tweeted in Hindi.

The Twitter war refused to die down when Lalu’s younger son and Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav, too, slammed Sushil.