New Delhi, June 21 (IANS) Terming Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s action of returning the relief money sent by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as ‘a move to fool the secular people’, a Congress leader Monday said that his party would benefit from the feud between Janata Dal-United and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Shakeel-uz-Zaman Ansari said here that Nitish Kumar’s move to return the relief money for the 2008 Kosi floods was an ‘election gimmick to fool the secular people of the state’.
‘Nitish Kumar has been sitting in the lap of BJP and RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh). He was a minister in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. He became chief minister of Bihar with the help of the BJP. Now, at the time for elections, he is indulging in drama,’ Ansari told IANS.
The Congress leader said ‘people of the state were wise enough to see through his (Nitish Kumar’s) moves.’
Ansari, who is a former Bihar minister, said though the feud between BJP and JD-U over return of relief money was their internal matter, ‘the Congress will benefit as people will punish the two parties’.
The AICC leader said the Congress had stepped up its electoral preparations in the state and observers were visiting all the constituencies to give a report to the central leadership. The assembly elections are due in Bihar later this year.
Ansari said that Nitish Kumar had gone for an NDA rally in Ludhiana during 2009 Lok Sabha elections after polling was over in Bihar and had shaken hands with Modi.
‘He is getting upset by the rally photograph… published many times over. Even the money he has returned has been done almost an year after it was sent,’ he said.
The rift between the BJP and JD-U intensified Sunday after the BJP Deputy Chief Minister in Bihar Sushil Kumar Modi did not attend the scheduled Vishwas Yatra with Nitish Kumar.
Nitish Kumar had taken umbrage to his photographs with the Gujarat chief minister appearing in newspaper advertisements without his consent during the BJP national executive meeting in Patna more than a week back.
Kumar had also objected to the advertisement mentioning the relief provided by Modi government during the Kosi floods. The unutilised portion of relief money was returned by Nitish Kumar Saturday.
