Nitish backs Modi, takes a dig at Lalu over corruption

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today took a dig at Lalu Prasad Yadav saying the RJD chief hadn't given any clarification on corruption charges levelled against him.

The Bihar chief minister said,"Nobodyhas the strength to compete with Narendra Modi."

Nitish Kumar had broken his tieswith the RJDand joined hands with BJP to form the government in Bihar amid high political drama last week. Nitish's JD(U) effectively broke up the "mahagatbandhan"(grand alliance) comprising of the JD(U), RJD andCongress which had come together to beat the BJP during the 2015 state assembly polls in Bihar. However, Nitish's political U-turn took everyone by surprise even though it was in the offing for some time.

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The Bihar chief minister broke his silence on the mahagatbandhan, saying: "RJD made objectionable statements against the mahagatbandhan."

"There were corruption charges and cases were filed by the CBI (against Lalu Prasad and family). I had only told them to come out with proper answers. Instead , they made fun of me saying whether I was a CBI official or the police," he told a press conference.

"How could I remain silent as I talked about zero tolerance on corruption," he asserted.

"I had tolerated every criticism for the sake of the mahagatbandhan. But none from the JD(U) had said anything against RJD's supreme leader."

On the issue of secularism, Nitish Kumar said: "I don't need any certificate from anybody on secularism."

"What does secularism mean? Does secularism mean making property worth thousands of crores?", he asked.

However, there were fissures within the JD(U) over the issue of themahagatbandhanwith Sharad Yadav declaring that he does not agree with Nitish Kumar's decision to leave the grand alliance.

"I don't agree with the decision in Bihar. It's unfortunate," he said. "The mandate by the people was not for this," he felt.

Meanwhile, the Patna High Court today dismissed petitions challenging the formation of the government in Bihar by Nitish Kumar's JD(U) along with the BJP. The court said no intervention of the court was required after the party had won the floor test in the state assembly.

Two PILs had challenged the formation of the new government on the ground that it had violated the judgement in the S R Bommai case.