The credit for expediting the fall of Bihar Mahagathbandhan goes to one and only man — senior State BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, who is back as Deputy Chief Minister in the Nitish Government. The BJP leader worked tirelessly for 114 days, revealing alleged benami assets accumulated by RJD chief lalu Prasad, his family members and his Deputy CM son Tejashwi Prasad Yadav.
Also known as SuMo in the media, Modi, who had served as Deputy CM from November 2005 to June 2013 under Nitish Kumar, made it a one-man crusade against lalu family.
On April 15, when Sushil Modi first exposed that soil from a proposed mall site owned by a firm associated with lalu Prasad’s son Tej Pratap, a Minister in the State Government, was used for sand filling work at Patna Zoo for Rs 90 crore, few would have expected that such a minor issue will snowball into such a major scandal that will spell the doom for lalu’s family and pave the way for Nitish Kumar’s homecoming to the NDA fold.
While lalu and his sons played down the scandal, Modi came out with another exposé, this time implicating lalu’s second son, Tejashwi, then deputy CM in the Government, and seen as the inheritor of lalu’s political legacy. The matter involved sell of two railway hotels in Ranchi and Odisha during lalu’s tenure as Railway minister in the UPA Government. It is alleged that the beneficiary of the deal transferred huge land to one of lalu’s close political confidante. The land was finally transferred to Tejashwi.
Sushil Modi never let the dust to settle over the scandals. He dug deep into properties held by lalu and his family members and kept holding Press conferences on daily basis to bombard the RJD supremo.
Asked if during his campaign he ever imagined that his efforts would end up breaking the grand alliance, Modi told The Pioneer, “Door door tak nahi socha tha (I had imagined even wildly). When I started my campaign, I had very few documents.”
Following the revelations by Modi, Income Tax department started a probe into the assets held by lalu’s family or companies in which Rabri Devi and their daughters and sons, including Tejashwi and Tej Pratap, and other family members were involved.
Modi succeeded in driving a wedge between Nitish and lalu when the CBI raided lalu’s official residence in Patna on July 5, interrogated Rabri and Tejashwi and filed FIRs against them.
Known for his meticulous research and paperwork, Modi kept piling on lalu’s woes, creating a situation that gave Nitish a credible “excuse’ to walk out of the Mahagathbhandan.
This is the second time, Modi has scripted lalu’s downfall. Even in case of fodder scam, it was Modi, who, both as petitioner for CBI probe and a firebrand leader of Opposition in the State Assembly, never allowed lalu to go off the hook. Modi provided vital clues to the media and probe agencies to bust the scandal that eventually led to lalu’s arrest and years later his conviction in the fodder scam.
Sushil Modi had showed the same zeal in taking on Nitish, when he formed the alliance with lalu. There was hardly any day when Modi did not attack the Nitish Government over one or other issue. He was such a hated man in Nitish’s durbar that JD(U) spokesperson Sanjay Singh was specially assigned to target Sushil Modi with innuendos and vituperation on daily basis.