Shatru vs SuMo: Bihar BJP leaders use Lalu for their end
Patna,(BiharTimes): There is no denying the fact that both cinestar-turned-Patna Saheb MP Shatrughan Sinha and former deputy chief minister of Bihar, Sushil Kmar Modi, have little space in the present Bihar BJP set up.
Yet both are using the same person, Lalu Prasad, to stage a comeback in state politics.
Flaying the favourate whipping boy, that is Lalu Prasad, is nothing new. In the last over a quarter century imnumerable political rivals have criticised him. So what Sushil Kumar Modi has been doing is not something very out of place.
But what Shatrughan Sinha is doing is something very strange. True in the last couple of years he had spoken many things in favour of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad. But this time he is doing something very different. He is stoutly defending Lalu Prasad against corruption charges levelled by a fellow leader of his own party.
Shatrughan Sinha is the only leader of any rival party who has come out so openly in favour of Lalu, and that too when the party is busy preparing for the third anniversary of the coming to power of the BJP-led NDA government.
Another leader who did support Lalu is Shivanand Tiwari, who has retired from politics. But he may have reason to back the RJD supremo as his son is the party MLA and both have good personal relationship since early 1970s.
SuMo argued in a counter-tweet to Shatru as to why is he defending Lalu when Nitish Kumar has not come out in his favour. But this question is not only for Shatrughan, but for SuMo too. Why such an old BJP horse is praising his rival?
The May 22 twitter-war between the two fallen leaders of the Bihar unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party has further intensified the bickering within. In the present state BJP set up nobody is too much bothered about either of the two leaders. The irony is that both Shatru and SuMo are among the senior most BJP hands in Bihar. Yet they have been left high and dry.
Many political observers are of the view that the slanging match on twitter between SuMo and Shatru reflect the frustration of both the leaders.
What is more curious is that both these leaders are considered close to Advani camp and are not in the good book of Narendra Modi.
By that logic today they both should have been speaking the same language. But analysts are of the view that while SuMo thinks that he can make a comeback in the party by attacking Lalu Prasad the Patna Saheb MP fear that he may not get ticket in the next election. So why not keep Nitish and Lalu in good humour.
Anyway a few words from Shatrughan Sinha in favour of Lalu have certainly come as a setback for SuMo, who is still struggling to get support of more BJP leaders.
Except Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad––and that too much later––none of the senior saffron party leader has so strongly flayed Lalu Yadav in the last one and a half months. Either they have become too dispirited or see no merit in SuMo’s charges which are certainly not new.
Not only Shatru, there are several BJP leaders in Bihar, who are of the view that SuMo’s allegations are highly exaggerated, if not totally wrong.
For example, how can he say that the cost of the upcoming mall is Rs 750 crore when it has not actually come up.
