Sushil Kumar Modi holds a news meet at his residence in Patna on Tuesday after his weekly janata durbar. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, Sept. 9: BJP today questioned the propriety of former chief minister Nitish Kumar for moving with government officials and holding meetings with them.

Senior party leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi also demanded that Nitish should explain his position. “Recently former chief minister Nitish Kumar had visited Nalanda to take the stock of the flood situation in the district along with six secretaries and also gave them instructions. I failed to understand that under which capacity he was moving along with six secretaries and issued instructions. He is not even a cabinet-rank minister,” said Modi.

Ever since Nitish picked up Jitan Ram Manjhi as his successor, Modi and other senior BJP leaders on several occasions have been raising objections and charging Nitish with running Manjhi’s government on remote control.

Modi added: “If Nitish was so interested in giving instructions to the officials and so attached to the post, why did he resign as chief minister?”

Asked about the names of secretaries present in the meeting with former chief minister, Modi said: “Road construction secretary Arun Kumar Singh, chairman-cum-managing director of Bihar State Power (Holding) Company Limited Pratyaya Amrit, rural works secretary S. Siddharth and few others were present in the meeting.”

His reaction came when a question was asked about the effectiveness of his weekly janata durbar as a former deputy chief minister. It was evident that not being in power, Modi’s janata durbar is not as powerful, as it used to be when he was the deputy chief minister. “Nitish got allotted for himself the second largest government bungalow after 1, Aney Marg. He has also got a room reserved for him in Bihar Bhavan and a huge sum was spent on renovating it. Only Nitish Kumar can stay there. Nitish owes an explanation to the people of the state that under what rules he got these facilities,” said Modi.

Recently, the state cabinet approved the cabinet secretariat department’s proposal to sanction secretarial staff for a former chief minister. The decision has entitled Nitish to keep two private secretaries, a private assistant and a lower division clerk besides four peons to assist him in carrying out his work.

However, the very next day, Nitish had declined to accept the personal staff allotted to him by the state government.

Nitish had resigned from the chief minister’s post on May 17 and handed over the reins of the state to Manjhi on May 20.

Asked about Modi’s comment of Modi, food and consumer protection minister Shyam Rajak said: “Modi is a desperate man. Can’t a people’s representative meet officials and think for people’s welfare? What’s wrong if Nitishji discusses good work for Nalanda residents? Modi belongs to the community of communal and fascist forces. He symbolises people like Nathuram Godse, Nazi leader Goebbels and late RSS leader M.S. Golwalkar. I feel pity him.”

A secretary present in Nitish’s meeting, preferring anonymity, told The Telegraph: “We were in Nalanda to take stock of the flood situation. Nearly eight lakh people have been affected and 50 have died. So, we went to discuss the flood issue and Nitishji just attended the meeting. Even disaster management principal secretary Vyasji and Pratyaya Amrit were there. Amrit had been appointed special district magistrate of Nalanda to tackle the flood situation.”