Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday won the vote of confidence on the floor of the State Assembly by comfortably proving his majority with the support of 126 MLAs in the House of 243 members.
Launching a scathing on the BJP, Nitish said, “Bharatiya Janata Party is now trying to impose divisive politics and the era of consultation and respect for ally is over. India is a country of diverse culture and everybody should be taken care of. Coalition is a reality and no single party should be under the false premise that they can alone govern the country.”
While replying to the debate on the motion of confidence, Nitish fired a salvo at Gujarat CM Narendra Modi, without naming him though.
“BJP workers are excited on a wave created by corporates for this leader. This wave will not do wonders in 2014 election,” the CM said.
Also questioning the portrayal of Modi as an OBC leader, Nitish said that one can’t become the leader of the OBCs just by being born in an OBC family. Leaders like Charan Singh and VP Singh were not born in OBC families, but became champions of their cause.
Nitish also slammed the Gujarat development model. “In Bihar we are doing inclusive development and this can’t be compared with the State which is already developed. The Bihar model would be the future model for the country,” he asserted, adding that Gujarat has a minimum wage of Rs 100 whereas in Bihar it was Rs 162.
“We had sent back the flood relief support of Rs 5 crore to Gujarat because they wanted to take credit for it by posting advertisements in local newspapers. What kind of the culture (sanskar) is it?” wondered Nitish.
Nitish also signalled to political parties the new political alignment in the State.
Only two days back, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had complimented him by calling him a secular leader and later Nitish responded by saying thanks and adding that the compliment has given peace to his mind.