Hug of convenience? Lalu and Nitish at an Iftaar party in 2010

Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar began their career together as close friends during the 1974 movement started by Jayaprakash Narayan. So strong was the bond between them that Lalu referred to Nitish as his “chhota bhai (younger brother)” and Nitish reciprocated by calling his friend “bada bhai (elder brother)”. The bond continued till Nitish parted ways in 1994 to form his Samata Party.

Lalu Prasad spoke to The Telegraph’s Nalin Verma on the career of his one-time friend and now bitter political adversary.

Nitish Kumar has been an opportunistic and heartless person throughout his life. A practitioner of use-and-throw politics, Nitish has dumped the BJP after extracting his pound of flesh from the party. I treated and nurtured him like a chhota bhai and always counted on him as apna aadmi (my own man). But I vividly remember how he deserted me. He (Nitish) has dumped the BJP exactly in the manner in which he deserted his parent party (Janata Dal) led by me.

Though I have no love lost for the BJP, which has leaders like L.K. Advani, who led the demolition of the Babri Masjid, and Narendra Modi, during whose regime the Gujarat riots occurred, I no longer treat Nitish as better than them.

I am revealing the actual story of how he left our Janata Dal. I sensed that some BJP leaders were trying to frame him (Nitish) and me in fodder scam cases in the early 1990s. My rivals had got a fodder mafiosi to make a statement that he had paid money to Nitish Kumar and me. Our rivals had hatched a plot to frame us together for they knew our closeness.

Sometime in 1994, I called Nitish to Bihar Niwas in New Delhi as he was apna aadmi (my own man) and told him how our rivals were conspiring against us. Nitish suddenly ran like a khargosh (hare) from me and befriended those conspiring against us. He worked on the BJP leaders to ensure that his name was withdrawn from the scam cases and my name was dragged in.

When he was with us, Nitish would always say that befriending the BJP was like consuming poison. He boasted of the ideals of our icons, Jayaprakash Narayan and Karpoori Thakur. After he was badly defeated in the 1995 Assembly polls, he was a forlorn man looking for oxygen. Uninvited, he went to attend the BJP’s national executive meet on November 10, 1995, in his bid to befriend the communal party.

At the BJP’s national executive in Bombay, Nitish said it was like a homecoming for him — this was to placate L.K. Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who didn’t know the opportunist in Nitish. But Nitish won their hearts by doing chamchai (buttering).

The BJP at that time had 45 MLAs in Bihar and was the main Opposition party against us. But Vajpayee and Advani fell prey to Nitish’s chamchai. They showered their affection on him and spared more seats for his Samata Party and later his Janata Dal (United) in successive elections.

They (Vajpayee and Advani) never consulted me about Nitish. Otherwise, I would have told them how they had got a very scheming and opportunistic man. I knew in advance that Nitish would dump the BJP after extracting his pound of flesh. If he could backstab a large-hearted and simple person like me, he (Nitish) could do it to anyone.

But God is great. Vinash kaale viparit buddhi (your wisdom fails you when you are about to meet destruction). The Almighty will no longer allow Nitish to succeed with his designs all the time. He stands thoroughly exposed after breaking his ties with the BJP. Nitish cannot fool all the people all the time. After he has deserted the BJP, over 50 of his JD(U) MLAs have sensed that he would sacrifice them at the altar of his personal ambition. They would desert him.

Nitish’s life is true to the adage — Koi aisa saga nahin, Nitish jisko thaga nahin (There is no friend whom Nitish has not duped)”. Believe me. Nitish has neither any commitment to secularism nor any genuine abhorrence for Narendra Modi like I have. He is simply distancing himself from Modi to grab Muslim votes.

After joining the BJP, he was a great admirer of Narendra Modi. I know it. You will hear it from many of his friends. He was railway minister when the Sabarmati Express was set on fire in Godhra. But Nitish neither ordered a probe into the Godhra train fire nor did he care to visit Godhra. He did all this to save Narendra Modi, his friend then. Nitish did not utter a word when thousands of people were killed in the Gujarat riots. He went to the extent of profusely congratulating Narendra Modi when he won the 2002 Assembly elections.

Ram Vilas Paswan resigned from Vajpayee government in 2002 to protest against the riots. Why did Nitish stay on as the railway minister when he was so disgusted with Modi and the riots? It was simply because he wanted to replace the RJD government in Bihar with the help of Narendra Modi and communal forces.

Now, he wants to grab the Muslim votes to pursue his bigger prime ministerial ambition against Narendra Modi. He has dumped the BJP exactly for this reason. But make no mistake. I never had any sympathy for the BJP. I have simply told you all these things to describe how opportunistic Nitish is. I have never seen as selfish a leader as Nitish in my over four decades in politics. He (Nitish) is a soulless and ruthless operator.

Initially, Nitish was a good student and good man also. But his quest for power has been his undoing.