How, SuMo wrestles within, outside the BJP for survival
Patna,(BiharTimes): Sushil Kumar Modi is a political wrestler whose career has much to do with the fate of Lalu Prasad Yadav. It is other thing that, of lae, he had to fight with one hand tied behind as his own party, the BJP, had virtually, has virtually deserted him. He was not invited to campaign in UP, when less influential leader like Nand Kishore Yadav and Mangal Pandey were roped in for this purpose.
Then the party appointed Nityanand Rai as the state president without consulting him. This was something very unusual. The new state executieve has none of SuMo’s men in it. In sheer frustration his supporters publicly called Nityanand Rai as a mafia.
“But the Bihar BJP without Sushil Modi was nothing better than a bunch of fools and even lumpen elements who can only ensure another defeat to the party in the next election. They stand nowhere to challenge the towering personality like Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad,” commented a journalist.
SuMo exploited this situation in his favour. He knows very well that attacking Nitish Kumar on any corruption charges may backfire as the latter had a 17 years long association with him. In fact Nitish and SuMo ran the government together for over eight and a half years.
The BJP leaders would never raise the uterus scam, paddy scam or school enrolment scam as their origin can be traced in the BJP-JD(U) government. The total amount involved in these three scams are many times more than the infamous fodder scam.
Two years back the Patna high court pulled up the CBI, which refused to take up this case. The PIL in this case was filed by the RTI activist Shiv Prakash Rai. Ironically, the CBI hired Rohan Jaitley, the son of Union finance minister Arun Jaitely, as the lawyer.
This scam, according to Rai, runs into several hundreds of crores.
But the BJP would not like to raise this issue as many of those alleged to be involved in it were close to the saffron party.
As SuMo wanted to bounce back nothing was better than to raise the ghost of Lalu Prasad. From April 4 he started attacking RJD chief and his family members. For over one full month none in the state BJP came to the help of SuMo. It was only then that Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad joined SuMo in his crusade against Lalu. By then the Supreme Court too had issued order on fodder scam.
As Sushil Modi has his quota of friends in media, bureaucracy and judiciary he never found himself alone.
Surprisingly, almost all the issues related to Lalu raised by SuMo are old and some of them had been highlighted in the past. Yet it was the story of re-packaging the old allegations.
As weakening Lalu suited the central leadership of the party the bargaining position of SuMo increased. The rejected man was called to campaign in Municipal Corporation of Delhi election on April 20-21.
As the campaign against Lalu raised hope of revival of state BJP some of its leader now started attacking RJD chief. But Rai is yet to say much. He and his men fear being overshadowed by SuMo.
As any story related to Lalu sells like a hot cake many in the media thoughtlessly highlighted all the allegations uttered by SuMo.
They never questioned him as on which basis he is saying that the cost of mall being built at Saguna More in Patna is Rs 750 crore when it has not yet been built. At present only the soil has been dug for laying foundation.
But then this is the way politicians are using journalists for their own political purpose.
