Union law and telecom minister Kapil Sibal at the news meet in Patna on Friday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Questioning the credentials of Narendra Modi, Union law and telecom minister Kapil Sibal on Friday claimed that the BJP was trying to polarise the elections on religious lines with the help of black money and black thoughts.

Flanked by senior Congress leaders Prem Chandra Mishra, Kaukab Qadri, Sanjay Sinha and Jaeya Mishra, he predicted that Modi would never become the Prime Minister. “Modi is in despair. His graph has declined drastically. They do talk about development but their campaigns have been designed and prepared on communal lines. They are trying to polarise the elections to reap the benefit,” Sibal told reporters here.

“A person (Modi) who says he would take revenge after 20 days cannot become the Prime Minister. The BJP is trying to win the elections with the help of kala dhan aur kali soch (black money and black thoughts),” Sibal said.

The Union minister, who was on a day’s visit to the state, said Modi never uttered a word against Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) or Shiv Sena when people from Bihar were misbehaved with in Maharashtra or Biharis were thrown out of Nasik and Pune. Sibal claimed that Modi had a hidden understanding with the MNS.

“Modi’s real face has been exposed to the people of Bihar. Bihar has never been the place for communal forces, rather it is a place of Ganga-Jamuni culture. People of Bihar will help secular forces to stop Modi from becoming the PM,” Sibal said.

The Union minister said “fake encounters” marked Modi’s regime in Gujarat. He said the (Gujarat) chief minister’s office (CMO)) and his men — Amit Shah and Parag Shah, an officer on special duty in the CMO, were allegedly involved in executing the fake encounters.

To buttress his point, Sibal showed the call details of talks among Amit Shah, Parag Shah and police officer Rajkumar Pandian, a policeman, after which Tulsiram Prajapati was allegedly killed. Similarly, Sibal claimed, former deputy inspector-general D.G. Vanzara and Shah had telephonic conversations before the alleged encounter of Ishrat Jahan. “Why Parag Shah was not arrested so far or why Amit Shah has not been made an accused in the Ishrat fake encounter case or why Modi was not interrogated in all these cases?” Sibal asked.

Mocking the so-called Gujarat model, Sibal said: “Twenty-five policemen were in jail in connection with fake encounter cases, a minister was convicted and the former home minister had been made an accused in the murder case in the state. Do people want such governance?”

On the snoopgate, the law minister said the government would name a judge to head the commission before May 16. Replying to a query on why the government had constituted the commission now when the elections would be over by May 16, Sibal said the government has set up the panel long ago.

When pointed out that Arun Jaitley had termed the UPA’s move taken in desperation, Sibal said: “You know how desperate Arun Jaitley is. He always comes to the rescue of Narendra Modi. He has permanent vakalatnama for Modi and Amit Shah.”

On RJD boss Lalu Prasad, Sibal said: “Our thinking and principles are same even if we do not share the platform.”

In response to a query as how long Congress would continue to support the Nitish government, the Union minister dodged the query but was quick to add that it took 17 long years to understand the BJP and its politics.