Alliance will serve as 'medicine' against BJP: Nitish

Madhubani (Bihar), Aug 12: Defending his move to join hands with old rival Lalu Prasad, senior JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar on Tuesday said alliance of secular parties in Bihar would serve as a "medicine to neutralise the poison of communalism BJP was spreading in the country after coming to power".

Kumar was addressing an election meeting in favour of RJD candidate Ram Avtar Paswan at Rajnagar (SC) constituency here. Speaking about the alliance, Kumar, who shared the dais with 'Bade bhai' (elder brother) Lalu Prasad at Hajipur yesterday after 20 years of political rivalry, said it was formed to check the division of votes which was a major reason behind the victory of BJP in the parliamentary election.

"The new experiment of unity of secular forces against BJP has started from Bihar and will soon extend to other parts of the country," he said. Kumar, who had led JD(U) to sever 17-year-old ties with BJP over the elevation of Narendra Modi as PM candidate, said he (Modi) and his party (BJP) were "masters" in spreading myths to "hoodwink" the people.

"Recently, it was portrayed that the visit of Narendra Modi to Nepal helped ward off the threat of flood in Kosi areas of Bihar on Indo-Nepal border... Message was spread as if this man stood on the path and stopped flow of water from Himalayan country into Kosi area. "When we (JD(U) government) worked hard to prevent damage due to flood, it came to light that the threat was never serious... The myth was spread to boost the image of the great human being (Narendra Modi)," he said.

Tearing into the NDA government at the Centre, Kumar, who resigned as Bihar chief minister in the wake of drubbing of JD(U) in the Lok Sabha polls, said unchecked price rise and corruption proved that the "dream of achche din (good days) will never be realised and it was meant to cash in on votes."

"Youths were hooked through social media to believe that a good job of over Rs 4 lakh was coming to them once Narendra Modi came to power. Clever people from outside fanned into villages and small towns to sell this dream to people in Bihar... They vanished overnight once the election was over," Kumar said alleging BJP of "befooling" voters.

PTI