Former MLA Maheshwar Yadav recently took up the task of publicly criticising his party chief Lalu Prasad. The RJD circles recalled that it was the second time Maheshwar went public against Lalu. “He criticised Lalu for the first time when the fodder scam surfaced. Maheshwar was the first party MLA to demand Lalu’s resignation as chief minister on account of the scam. During that time he was considered close to Sharad Yadav and his ttack on Lalu was said to be remote controlled by Sharad,” a senior RJD leader said. Maheshwar played anti-Lalu politics for some time but later on joined him. The party leaders pointed out that what Maheshwar did almost 14 years ago was “braver”. “At that time, Lalu was invincible and speaking against him in public was unthinkable even though a lot of MLAs did so in closed quarters. Today, Lalu has lost politically in Bihar and anyone can criticise him,” the RJD leader said.
Bihar chief minister itish Kumar and his ujarat counterpart Narendra Modi are not best of friends but Gujarat keeps on resurfacing in Bihar politics. Posters of Gujarat communal violence before the 2004 Lok Sabha polls in Bihar reportedly played a major role in the defeat of the NDA then. But since then Nitish has managed to marginalise the Gujarat effect by announcing a series of measures for the minorities and snubbing Modi. But the RJD is still hopeful that Gujarat will revive its dipping fortunes in Bihar. Reacting to the police firing in Forebesganj in which four minority community members were killed, the state RJD president Ram Chandra Purbey eclared that his party would not allow Bihar to go the Gujarat way and announced a series of gitation programmes. He alleged that Nitish had given a free hand to his deputy, Sushil Kumar Modi. The JD(U) leaders were unperturbed. Nitish has buried the Gujarat effect. The RJD is trying to revive a ghost,” a senior JD(U) leader said.
The BJP theoretically believes deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi is the boss when chief minister Nitish Kumar is not in the state. ut there is serious doubt over this theory within the party. “No cabinet meeting has been convened since Nitish left,” said a senior BJP leader said, pointing out that Modi was just going through the rituals like announcing compensation to the kin of the people drowned in boat capsize. The person who holds the general administration and home departments is the real boss and Modi has not been even given the charge of either,” a JP leader said, insisting that Nitish was running ihar from China.
