PATNA: Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Thursday called the rally held here by the CPI and attended by leaders of other Left parties and constituents of the Congress-led UPA a "failure".
The senior BJP leader also targeted Tejashwi Yadav saying by skipping the rally and meeting people with criminal backgrounds during his ongoing "Samvidhan Bachao Nyay Yatra", the RJD heir apparent had made his preferences clear.
"The Left parties have lost the people's trust on account of their unflinching support to the 15-year-long Lalu-Rabri rule in Bihar which was marked by massacres of the poor and scandals like the former scam", Sushil tweeted.
"Rallies like the one held today can not make the Left a match for the NDA government in the state, which is devoted to the progress of 11 crore people of the state. The failure of the rally has deflated the opposition's prospects of putting up a unified fight", the Deputy CM added.
In an another tweet, he alleged "the Left parties had not only kept silent over the lawlessness that prevailed during the Chief Ministership of Lalu and Rabri, in a bid to get the patronage of power, they also gave a cold shoulder to ghastly events like the killing of student leader Chandrashekhar".
Chandrashekhar was a member of the CPI(ML) Liberation which took part in the rally held at Gandhi Maidan here.
He was shot dead in his home town of Siwan allegedly at the behest of dreaded local MP Mohd Shahabuddin who belonged to the RJD.
Sushil also remarked "by hobnobbing with criminals in Gopalganj-Siwan and staying away from the rally, Tejashwi Yadav has made made the preferences of his party clear".
The Deputy CM's remark was in reference to Yadav's meeting with the family members of Mohd Shahabuddin earlier this week when the RJD leader was in Siwan.
The jailed former MP's wife also shared the stage with him at a rally.
This was followed by photographs showing the former Deputy CM sharing the stage with a Gopalganj-based history sheeter when he reached that district as part of his state-wide tour the next day.
Meanwhile, the Janata Dal (United) which is headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, came out with a statement alleging that the young RJD leader was wary of diminition of his stature which kept him away from the rally.
"Tejashwi Yadav knows that there are many other young leaders who are more sensible and educated than he is. By sharing the stage with them he would have ceased to be in the limelight. He has been wary of his own brother, how can he tolerate the rise of other young leaders", JD(U) spokesman Sanjay Singh said.
Singh's statement was an obvious reference to the presence, at the rally, of former JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar and Gujarat dalit leader Jignesh Mevani, besides Yadav's reported tussle with his elder sibling Tej Pratap Yadav.