The plaques with and without the name of deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi. Pictures by Sanjay Choudhary

Patna, April 26: In a bid to play safe amid the mood swings of the JD(U) and the BJP leaders, bureaucrats prepared two plaques for the inauguration of a “cheese and the milk processing plant” at Dehri-on-Sone.

One had the names of chief minister Nitish Kumar, deputy chief minister and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi and officials of Bihar State Milk Co-operative Federation Limited. The name of Modi was missing in the other.

The plaque without the name of Modi was left in the cold and the one having the names of all the VIPs was finally put in place.

Nitish inaugurated the plant on Thursday in the presence of Modi, animal and fish resources minister Giriraj Singh and minister for art, culture and youth affairs Sukhada Pandey among others.

The officials at the new dairy plant claimed that the two plaques were prepared in Patna and were sent to the firm site a couple of days ago. “We have no role in the preparation of the plaques,” said an official.

Dehri sub-divisional officer Mohammed Rehman also said the local administration had nothing to do with the plaques for the event. “This was the job of Bihar State Milk Co-operative Federation Limited officials and the local administration had nothing to do with it,” he told The Telegraph over phone from Dehri-on-Sone, about 165km west from here.

The officials of Bihar State Milk Co-operative Federation Limited in Patna preferred to maintain silence on the issue for obvious reasons. “No comments,” said a senior officer of the animal and fish resources department.

Modi did not respond to the calls made by The Telegraph, but a senior BJP leader said: “Officials don’t do anything on their own unless they get any indication from the top. The presence of two plaques clearly showed that they were not sure whether the chief minister wanted to have the name of his deputy on the plaque to be put up at the dairy site or not. Installation of the one with Modi’s name clearly indicates that a last-minute instruction was given for the same.”

The function, which witnessed the outburst of Independent MLA from Dehri Jyoti Rashmi on the dais, was not attended by two BJP MLAs from the district — Jawahar Prasad (Sasaram) and Rameshwar Prasad (Nokha). The duo said they were not invited to the function while the JD(U) legislators from the district were.

“We met the party leaders, including Modi, on the Bihar Military Police campus and returned home as we had no formal invitation,” Prasad said.