The Patna bomb blasts appeared to have snowballed into a tussle between political titans and former alliance partners — BJP and JD(U) — as BJP on Tuesday culminated its ‘asthi-kalash yatra’ of all the six people killed in the serial bomb blasts on October 27, the JD(U) alleged it as a ploy to polarise votes in the upcoming lok Sabha polls. The BJP countered blaming Nitish Kumar for behaving like a real dictator in the State.
The BJP leaders immersed the urn of ashes of all the six victims in the river Ganga at Gaighat of Patna. The BJP called them “martyrs” who had sacrificed their life struggling for a change in the system and promptly announced `5 lakh compensation to each of the victim family members.
“The asthi-kalash yatra moved through all the districts of Bihar and now we’re immersing it in holy river Ganga with a resolve to fight against terrorism”, said senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi.
later, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had visited four of the six families, the remaining two families were consoled via telephone due to bad weather. Modi also presented a cheque of `5 lakh to all the four families. Modi later charged Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for being “insensitive” and not visiting the grieving family members.
“Had Nitish Kumar made proper security arrangements at the rally venue lives of all those killed could have been saved. But, he still didn’t take the pain to visit the aggrieving familiess”, rued State BJP leaders.
However, JD(U) leaders reacted saying that the yatra is merely an attempt of the BJP to reap political benefits from this grief in the upcoming general elections. “When the customary ritual of 13-days is still not performed by the victims family members, the BJP had gone ahead and immersed their ashes in river Ganga chanting BJP zindabad, Narendra Modi zindabad. It shows their real face”, charged JD-U leader Neeraj Kumar. Earlier, the Bihar CM Nitish Kumar too had charged BJP for vitiating the communal harmony and peace of the State with acts like the ‘asthi-kalash yatra.’
But the State BJP leaders refuted saying that “We’re not speaking against any community through this yatra…we have just paid respect to all those killed in the bomb blasts at our party’s rally which Nitish Kumar ignored”, said senior State BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi who, earlier, was deputy of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar.
Modi also questioned JD(U) asking “Is this the way votes could be polarised in democracyIJ I do not think it’s a political move and anyone can reap political benefit out of this”, said Sushil Modi.
Another BJP leader Giriraj Singh said that it was all propaganda by Nitish Kumar to divert attention of the people of from his failure in providing security to people of the State.
“He could not even provide security to people who had come to participate in the rally and just to overlook his failure he and his partymen are making such unnecessary comments”, alleged Giriraj Singh.
“The CM is known for his dictatorial attitude and it was only because of this that party veterans like George Fernandes, lallan Singh, Digvijay Singh and others have quit his party”, said BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi.