The posters in Patna accuse JD(U) leaders of taking orders from the BJP.
Highlights
- The posters came up in Patna and name four JD(U) leaders
- Posters say the leaders are working at the behest of BJP's Sushil Modi
- Sushil Modi has accused Nitish Kumar's ally Lalu Yadav of corruption
A very public manifestation of the rift between Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his alliance partner Lalu Yadav has mushroomed on the streets of Patna -- posters against Mr Kumar's Janata Dal United, which accuses party leaders of taking orders from the BJP.
The posters, which came up yesterday, say nothing against the Chief Minister or mention Lalu Yadav. Instead, they carry photographs of four senior leaders of the JD(U), including its spokesperson, and maintain they have been talking out of turn despite express orders from Mr Kumar. "This is happening at the instance of BJP leader Sushil Modi," the posters say.
The indication is that under Sushil Modi's orders, the JD(U) leaders have been attacking the Rashtriya Janata Dal - whose chief Lalu Yadav is under BJP fire for alleged corruption. Two of Lalu Yadav's sons are in Nitish Kumar's cabinet.
The Chief Minister wants one of them, Tejashwi Yadav, his number 2, to step down. The Yadav junior, along with his mother and siblings, owns land that his father had allegedly got during his tenure as the railway minister in a lucratively cheap deal. During the elections, he had failed to declare the land as an asset. Sushil Modi has been demanding his ouster.
While Lalu Yadav is unwilling to pull out his son from the government, Mr Kumar, during his visit to Delhi yesterday, got in touch with Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi to discuss the issue.
The Congress is the third partner of Bihar's Grand Alliance - forged three years ago to keep the BJP out of power in the state assembly elections -- appears on brink of unravelling. Much of the rift is attributed to the shaky relationship between the Chief Minister and Lalu Yadav since the corruption charges. The situation is seen to have worsened after Mr Kumar parted company with the opposition to support the BJP's candidate for presidential elections, Ram Nath Kovind, who had been the Governor of Bihar.
The BJP, which is also the erstwhile ally of Mr Kumar, has offered him support should he pull out of the alliance. Today Sushil Modi said Mr Kumar was "wasting his time meeting Rahul Gandhi for reportedly asking Tejaswi Yadav to tender resignation".
Sushil Modi -- who was the deputy of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar before he walked out of the alliance in the run-up to the 2014 elections -- had been the one leading the charge against Lalu Yadav. Over the last couple of months, he had held more than a dozen press conferences against the RJD leader, accusing him of multiple instances of corruption. On each occasion, he has released documents that, he said, were evidence.