Opinion Rattled Nitish lets nervousness show
Modi said that the NDA,if voted to power in 2014,would give Bihar a Rs 50,000.
It is not very often that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar,otherwise known for his measured and chiselled,politically correct statements,engages in such language. His pre-Diwali jibes against Narendra Modi included asking the people of Bihar to clean up garbage coming from outside and since then he has accused his Gujarat counterpart of doing jhooth ki kheti (cultivating lies).
If Modis intention was to rattle the man who had publicly painted himself as one of his chief detractors,he appears to have succeeded. In his reactions at least,Nitish is sounding increasingly like a desperate man with few answers to the BJPs Modi-led onslaught in Bihar.
It is Nitishs first real encounter with a determined and aggressive opposition,with the RJD for a long time relegated to a defensive position,till recently.
Sources said what really got the Bihar CMs goat was the BJP trying to usurp the JD(U)s main poll plank of seeking a special category status for the state,which was repeated by the party at its recent Rajgir convention. Modi said at his Patna rally that the NDA,if voted to power in 2014,would give Bihar a Rs 50,000 crore special package,much more than Nitish has been seeking.
Nitish has been re-packaging his Bihar development model around this special status demand,and since Modis impressive show,has coined a new name for his yatra theme from Adhikar to Sankalp.
The BJP is of course rubbing its hands in glee,having forced Nitish to repeatedly acknowledge a rival whom he had earlier sought to run down by refusing to simply engage with him.
However,even they may have not expected Nitish to hand them on a platter the opportunity he has done since the rally and the blasts that targeted it. The JD(U) has gone red in the face defending security arrangements at the rally,convincing few,and now Nitish has shot himself in the foot claiming that the attack had actually done Modi good as it had turned attention away from the fact that it was a flop show.
Santosh is a special correspondent based in Patna
santosh.singh@expressindia.com
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