Patna,(BiharTimes): The bitter war of words between BJP and Janata Dal (United) has, in a way, made rival parties like Congress, RJD and LJP a bit irrelevant as the two important constituents of the NDA are themselves busy cancelling out each other’s tall claims of development, good governance and high growth rate.

On Sunday Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar did not just attack Narendra Modi for his failure to check the communal riots in his state, but ended up questioning Gujarat’s claim on development and good governance.

Attacking Modi on secularism might have been understandable and BJP leaders often appear somewhat defensive on this issue. But Nitish invited trouble when he started raising doubts over development and governance in that state. Till recently the BJP has been following the coalition dharma and not attacking the Nitish government––in fact it was always praising it––as the party is partner in Bihar.

The BJP leaders were quick to hit back. Its spokesperson reminded that it was none else but Nitish Kumar who was the railway minister on February 27, 2002 when a coach of Sabarmati Express was gutted in fire at Godhra killing about 50 kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya. 

It was only after this incident that riots broke out in Gujarat.

That was not enough. BJP MP from Purnea, Uday Singh, while participating in a TV discussion, asked as to why Nitish did not resign then when Lal Bahadur Shashtri had quit the post of railway minister after a rail accident in 1950s. 

On Tuesday Nitish responded by stating that in fact the Godhra incident was not a normal train mishap but the fire was caused due to the failure of law and order machinery, which is a state subject. 

So far so good. But one thing which Nitish never said is why did the Commissioner Railway Safety (CRS) did not probe the Godhra incident, when he is supposed to inquire all mishaps involving railway. True it is senior railway officials who are made CRS but once he takes over this post he comes under the ministry of civil aviation and not railway so that nobody could influence him in his investigation work. 

So Nitish might not have been directly responsible for the absence of CRS probe into the Godhra probe. But one question remained unanswered: as to why he did not raise this issue in 2002? 

The common people came to know about it after Lalu Yadav became the railway minister in May 2004 and constituted Banerjee Commission to inquire as to what actually happened in Godhra. 

Nitish was always quick to rebut what Lalu did. But now since he has chosen to attack BJP directly for what went wrong in Godhra and afterward, the Hindutva party leaders are equally quick to counter him for his own role. Never before in 17 years of relationship leaders of these two parties have washed their dirty linen so publicly as now. 

There is growing realization in a large section of BJP that going to poll with Nitish as the chief minister of Bihar may prove costly as the latter had lost his popularity. Many of its leaders told Rajnath Singh that it was because of Nitish that BJP is not growing in Bihar. 

BJP has got enough feedback from rank and file all over Bihar and they are of the opinion that only the projection of Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate would help it gain the loss ground.

Reports appearing in a section of media say that BJP ministers from Bihar may quit the Nitish cabinet after the Karnataka Assembly poll. After that the party would be in position to attack the non-performance of the Nitish Kumar government. In private talks many BJP leaders are extremely critical of the Bihar government. On a number of occasions in the recent past its national vice president, Dr C P Thakur, had openly expressed the displeasure over its functioning.

Nitish also mentioned about the seafront advantage of Gujarat meaning thereby that most of its development took place because of the geographical advantage. In the past too he and other JD (U) leaders had repeatedly said that Gujarat was already a much developed state with much faster growth rate in the past suggesting thereby that Narendra Modi had nothing much to be praised. In contrast what Bihar achieved is worth highlighting.

With both the NDA constituents engaged in no-holds barred wordy duel where is the need of the rival political parties to speak. Both the NDA parties, had over the years, spent crores of rupees to cultivate the image of Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar respectively. Now they are harming each other. The only beneficiary was/is the media.