PATNA: Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi on Friday claimed that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar wanted to "scare and confuse" current allies RJD and Congress by speaking about personal equations with those in the saffron party.
Modi, who had served as Kumar's deputy for more than a decade and is known for having had an excellent rapport with the JD(U) leader, however, said that the latter had become a spent force with whom the BJP would no longer like to have a truck.
"We would like to align with forces which can benefit us and can be benefited by us. Nitish Kumar is left with virtually no support base, a reason why his party was drubbed in the 2020 assembly polls. A realignment with him is out of the question for the BJP. It has also been stated repeatedly by our national leadership," Modi told reporters.
He was replying to queries from journalists about speculations that Kumar, at a function on Thursday, had tried to send signals to the BJP while speaking of "personal friendship" with Radha Mohan Singh, a veteran saffron party leader who had served in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's first cabinet.
Kumar had made the remark at the convocation ceremony of Mahatma Gandhi Central University in Motihari, East Champaran.
Hours later, at the convocation ceremony of AIIMS, Patna he had voiced displeasure over a section of the media coming out with "slanted" reports of his utterances.
Sushil Kumar Modi, who has known Kumar since the 1970s when both were student leaders, cutting their teeth in the Bihar movement launched by Jayaprakash Narayan, was of the view that the JD(U) leader was trying to "scare" and "confuse" the Congress and the RJD.
"Nitish Kumar may be thinking that by doing so he will be able to give an impression that he has aces up his sleeve, which would keep his current allies in check. Be that as it may, he has burnt his bridges with the BJP. His party has also grown weak ever since he parted ways with us. JD(U)'s former national president RCP Singh is now in BJP while Upendra Kushwaha, who headed the parliamentary board, is an NDA partner," the Rajya Sabha member pointed out.
He also said the BJP-led NDA had "bundled out the JD(U) for two seats out of 40 in Bihar in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, which was the last time when Nitish fought separately from us".
"In 2024, his tally will be reduced to zero. The BJP has only grown stronger in the recent past, as is evident from our improved performance in by-elections to three seats held in the last one year," Sushil Modi said.
Meanwhile, JD(U) president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan alleged that a section of the media was "driven by the agenda to portray that there is turmoil in our party".
Lalan asserted, "Sometimes they say Nitish Kumar is getting close to the BJP. Sometimes they even say all is not well between him, the party's supreme leader, and me. There is no question of Nitish Kumar, the driving force behind opposition unity, of joining hands with the BJP again."
"The BJP is a party of backstabbers as was evident in the assembly polls of 2020 and its attempt to hatch a conspiracy against the JD(U) with the help of a very member of our party," he alleged.
The allusion was to the then LJP president Chirag Paswan fielding candidates, many of them BJP rebels, in all seats contested by the JD(U) in 2020 and alleged attempts to "break" the party with the help of RCP Singh who had been inducted into the Union cabinet without Kumar's approval.
"Nitish Kumar believes in respecting personal relations but it must also be remembered that he has committed to dethroning Narendra Modi next year. He is pursuing the goal single-mindedly," Lalan added.