Patna, June 22 (IANS) A Bihar Police team has been sent to Gujarat’s Surat city to probe who sanctioned full page advertisements in vernacular dailies here bearing a photograph of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi, an official said Tuesday.
The advertisements triggered a controversy between ruling allies, the Janata Dal-United and the Bharatiya Janata Party after Nitish Kumar objected to the use of his photo without his permission.
Additional Director General of Police P.K Thakur said that a police team was sent to Surat to investigate.
According to sources in the police headquarters, the three-member team is led by a deputy superintendent of police.
Soon after advertisements were published in local newspapers on June 12 – the opening day of the BJP’s two-day national executive meeting, an angry Nitish Kumar had threatened legal action against the agency that released the advertisement.
A police team June 13 raided the office of Expression Advertisement at Frazer Road here and seized the CD of the advertisement. Agency director Arvindam Guha was questioned for more than three hours.
The advertisement, published in the name of dozens of people of Bihar who are now settled in Gujarat, projected Modi as a close friend of Nitish Kumar and highlighted his state’s generous help after the 2008 Kosi floods in Bihar.
Miffed over the advertisement, Nitish Kumar had cancelled a dinner he was to host for top BJP leaders of the BJP attending the party meet. Last Saturday, he returned to Gujarat the Rs.5 crore its government had given for relief of the flood victims.
