After stoutly defending his boss for seven and a half years former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, has now turned his gun on Nitish Kumar.

In the last two and a half months he spared no moment whatsoever to target the Bihar chief minister, whom he had served more loyally than many Janata Dal (United) ministers. For this he had to, on a number of occasions, even earn the wrath of his own partymen, who would repeatedly allege that he had reduced the saffron party in Bihar to the B-team of Janata Dal (United).

In seven and a half years only once did he disagreed with Nitish and that was on the budget speech of the Union finance minister, P Chidambaram. While the chief minister welcomed it, especially the portion which talked about revisiting the special category status to states, SuMo flayed it stating that there is nothing in the budget.

But how appropriate would it be to go into reverse gear only after being literally booted out of the office, along with 10 other party ministers by the same Nitish Kumar?

SuMo has now gone to the extent of equating Nitish with Lalu. The big question is: if it is so than why waited 17½ years to flay him and that too after being thrown out of office.

The BJP bigwigs are now finding fault with everything in Bihar. They alleged that law and order has completely collapsed, the state government has failed in dealing with Maoists and terrorists, there is rampant loot and corruption and politics has been criminalized, the state is facing acute power crisis, there is total chaos and mismanagement in administration, flood and drought hit people have been completely neglected, education and health-care system has gone from bad to worse etc. Not only that SuMo, in particular, has now gone hammer and tongs against Nitish Kumar’s campaign for the special category status.

Some of the BJP leaders, for example, Giriraj Singh, even went on to say that the situation is worse than the jungle raj of Lalu-Rabri years.

All these allegations may be 101 per cent true. But then the big question is: have all these things happened all out of sudden after June 16.

Many BJP leaders would have the people believe so. They would say that things have collapsed because of the vacancy caused by 11 ministers of BJP, who were holding important portfolios.

True, Bagaha firing, Bodh Gaya blasts and Masrakh school tragedy occurred soon after the split.

But then is not it the fact that many Chhath devotees lost their lives when a bamboo bridge had collapsed last November. There was total chaos and nobody to look after the victims in PMCH. For the first time in Bihar’s recent history accident victims were taken from the government hospital to private ones for treatment. There was not even ambulance ready to lift the people.

It was then reported that none else but SuMo was responsible for the bridge construction as Nitish was busy building bridge with Pakistan. The health portfolio was then held by none else but Ashwani Choubey, who once even called for chopping off the hands of doctors. But none of the BJP minister has ever spoken as to why nobody has been punished for the Chhath tragedy. Why did not they ask Nitish to pay visit to the family of victims?

Bagaha firing is condemnable, but what about Forbesganj where a home guard jawan trampled on the body of an injured youth till he died. Among four persons killed was a pregnant woman and a young boy.

The BJP MLC, Ashok Agrawal, who was blamed for the incident, was a few months later arrested when he shot dead his own employee. That was possible only because the employee’s brother was a local journalist, who dared to make it a point to fight the battle.

The case of Rupam Pathak is known to all. True the lady school principal reportedly stabbed the then BJP MLA, Raj Kishore Kesari, on Jan 4, 2011. But why she did so?

Nitish, during one of his visits to Purnea before the incident, even distanced himself from Kesari when he learnt something about him. But it was none else but Sushil Modi, who immediately after the killing of Kesari, openly called Rupam a black-mailer. She was almost lynched after the incident by the supporters of BJP, yet nobody was booked. While Navlesh Pathak, a local journalist, who took up her cause, was pushed behind bars, the aide of Kesari, whom Rupam accused of raping her, remained at large.

The BJP leaders are quick to call some of the JD(U) ministers and legislators as more corrupt, inefficient and criminal-minded than that of RJD. They may be right. But it was none else but they themselves, along with friends in the media, who were giving the certificates that they are all saints and all those who ruled Bihar for 15 long years before that were rascals and thieves. The truth is that they are all birds of the same feather, who, to borrow Nitish’s expression, tweet in the same manner.

Is it that by speaking too much against the same government the saffron brigade wants to atone for the sin they have committed? But people’s memory is not too short.