Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh at an anti-communalism rally in Delhi. (PTI)
Nitish Kumar, who launched a fierce attack on political rival Narendra Modi in Bihar yesterday, continued making digs at the BJP leader as he landed in Delhi this morning.
Welcoming new members to his party, the Janata Dal United, the Bihar Chief Minister observed, "The councillor from the Red Fort area in Delhi is now ours. Many others dream of unfurling the flag at the Red Fort, but our flag flies high there already."
He also said, "They may or may not realise their Red Fort dream, but their rallies definitely have a Red Fort on stage."
He was alluding to a Modi rally in election-bound Chhattisgarh last month, where a fond BJP built a model of Delhi's Red Fort on the stage for its presumptive prime minster.
The BJP hopes that it will be Mr Modi who will unfurl the flag at the Red Fort next year as the country's Prime Minister. At a party convention in Bihar yesterday, Nitish Kumar predicted, "Your Red Fort dream will remain a dream."
Greeting several leaders who have left the Lok Janshakti Party to join the JD(U), Mr Kumar observed that only his party's alliance with the BJP had prevented them from doing so before this. "Now that wrongs have been corrected, they are back," he said.
The BJP has retaliated saying Mr Kumar's sustained diatribe against Mr Modi makes him sound like a man on the verge of losing an election.
Mr Kumar dumped the BJP in June this year, breaking a 17-year alliance as it became clear, he said, that the party would name Mr Modi as its candidate for prime minster in 2014. Which the BJP did three months later.
Ever since, there has been much speculation on which way the JD(U) will choose to align in next year's general elections.
Mr Kumar attended a convention against communalism organised by the Left in Delhi today along with leaders from 13 other parties. He denied that there a move to re-group a non-Congress, non-BJP Third Front, but said parties must be united in the fight against "communalism and terrorism."