For the mediapersons in Patna, all roads lead to the offices of BJP and RJD. Under the scorching sun, they are forced to reach either one or both the offices, located nearby on Beer Chand Patel Marg, to cover the Press conferences by the top leaders of these parties, almost every day.
To compete with the hot weather, the leaders of these parties belch fire inside the air-conditioned halls of their respective offices with ‘fiery’ disclosures and evidences. These charges are related to black money, benami assets and money laundering by the leaders of the rival parties.
It started nearly a month ago with a senior BJP leader coming out with allegations against RJD supremo lalu Prasad, his wife and former CM Rabri Devi and their both Ministers sons apart from their daughters. Starting from ‘mitti’ (soil) scam to shopping mall and benami properties it has come to the charges of amassing assets through illegal means during the last one decade.
What is intriguing is that other leaders of the BJP are keeping a silence on the charges hurled by Sushil Modi as if the party is keeping a distance from him. On the other hand, no leader or spokesman of the JD(U), RJD’s ally in the Bihar Government, ever tried to defend lalu. Another ally Congress is also keeping a distance from this affair. A senior JD(U) functionary said, “This episode is sort of a blessing in disguise for us. Now no leader of the RJD has moral courage to criticise Nitish nor is lalu in position to pressurise the CM.”
With the former Deputy CM Modi continuing his tirade unabated, RJD and lalu also came out first to deny the charges and then with allegations against Modi and his relatives. For the past one week almost every day Modi is revealing new charges against lalu clan and from the RJD side its national spokesman Manoj Jha and other State leaders are going hammer and tong against Modi.
Modi is asking Chief Minister Nitish Kumar almost every day to sack lalu’s sons: Deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Health Minister Tej Pratap Yadav and order CBI probe into the series of scams he was highlighting, but there has absolutely been no reaction from the head of the grand alliance Government as yet. The only benefit Nitish and JD(U) seemingly got from this episode is that no leader of the RJD, particularly its vice president Raghubansh Prasad Singh, who had been attacking Nitish on regular intervals, is keeping a silence.
This fight between Modi and lalu is now losing the attention of the people as well as the media. The sparkles ignited by this fight hardly grabbed the attention of the national media.