One of the six blasts that took place at the venue of Narendra Modi's rally in Patna on Oct 27
The Bihar BJP will today take out a procession carrying the ashes of the six people killed in the blasts targeting Narendra Modi's rally in Patna last month, a move that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has slammed as an attempt to incite communal trouble.
Top state BJP leaders will lead the "Asthi Kalash Yatra" this afternoon, and march from the party office to the Ganga river to immerse the ashes, as the state's ruling Janata Dal United seethes at what it calls politics over the blast victims.
"The BJP wants to vitiate the atmosphere. But we will not allow our harmony to be undermined," Nitish Kumar had said of the yatra, calling it an attempt to fan communal sentiments.
The BJP hit back, saying that its yatra was just a reflection of the anger of the people of Bihar over the blasts and the failure of the state government to provide adequate security at the rally of its Prime Ministerial candidate.
The sparring between the former allies intensified on Saturday when Mr Modi visited the families of the blast victims across the state. The BJP said Mr Modi was compensating for the callousness of the chief minister as he had made no attempt to meet the families of the victims.
In an apparent dig at Mr Modi, Nitish Kumar said, "The broom that has been bought (on the Dhanteras festival when buying for the household is auspicious) will be used to clean up all the dirt that has come from all the directions."
The JD-U leader ended his party's 17-year-long alliance with the BJP in June over Mr Modi's elevation within his party. Nitish Kumar is among the critics of the Gujarat Chief Minister who see him as a polarizing leader who did not do enough to stop the 2002 riots in his state, in which nearly 1,000 were killed, mostly Muslims.