Patna, Oct. 25: Not just Uttar Pradesh, Bihar too is witnessing a " chacha-bhatija" battle unfold with increasing bitterness.
Tejashwi Yadav, the deputy chief minister, has come out all guns blazing against his predecessor from the BJP, Sushil Kumar Modi, over the latter's allegations regarding the state being held at ransom over road over-bridge projects.
During the 2009 Lok Sabha election campaign, whenever Tejashwi - then a political greenhorn - met the senior BJP leader at the airport, he would touch the feet of " Chacha Sushil". Modi was then deputy chief minister in the NDA government of Nitish Kumar. Tejashwi's show of respect was because of the old association between his father Lalu Prasad and Modi - in spite of their political rivalry. Both started their political journey from the Patna University campus in the early seventies and cut their teeth in the JP movement. Even while criticising the BJP, Tejashwi prefixed a "chacha" while referring to Sushil Modi in public meetings.
That deference appears to have been tossed aside with Tejashwi now questioning the "mental stability" of Modi. The BJP leader had recently alleged that work on "90 road over-bridges" in the state had been stalled because road construction department advisor Sudhir Kumar was adamant that six such projects would first have to be completed in Saran and Vaishali districts, once considered the pocket boroughs of RJD chief Lalu Prasad.
Modi had released documents of a letter written to the chief secretary of Bihar in September this year by the chief administrative officer of East Central Railway, L.M. Jha, pointing out that "the state government will not co-ordinate on any issue with the railway till 6 ROBs (road over-bridges) are sanctioned".
Tejashwi, who had till then shown restraint in criticising Modi, retaliated by declaring that the BJP leader had "lost his mental balance" and was lying. He denied that he the department had received any such letter and alleged that the previous BJP ministers holding the road construction portfolio had done nothing.
Modi today again produced purported documents in support of his charge that the road construction department had put the spanner in the construction of the road over bridges. "In reply to my charge, the RCD (road construction department) minister and deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav has mocked me and sought documentary proof in this regard...I have annexed the photo-copies of letters written by the railways to the chief secretary and principal secretary, RCD, Bihar, which substantiate my charge," Modi said at a news meet today.
The railways wrote a letter to the chief secretary on September 15, 2016, while another letter was written to the RCD secretary on September 23, 2016, in which it said that "it is insisting that the state government will not coordinate on any issue with the railway till 6 ROBs are sanctioned...."
The BJP leader said he had a word of advice for Tejashwi. "I can only advise him (Tejashwi) not to follow in the footsteps of his father who used to abuse and threaten political rivals. He should try to be like Akhilesh Yadav (the UP chief minister locked in a family feud), who is trying to get out of the shadow of his father," Sushil said, while reminding Tejashwi that the Lalu-Rabri regime of 15 years was marked for its "non-development".
Tejashwi brushed aside the allegations. "Sushil Modi is a confused man. Nobody in the government takes him seriously. He has been rejected by the people in 2015 and he holds press conferences on a daily basis for himself," Tejashwi told The Telegraph.
