New Delhi:
A day after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar met senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, the BJP on Thursday slammed the Opposition parties for attempting to forge a united front to fight the BJP in the 2024 polls.
Taking a dig at the Gandhi scion, BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla told a press conference here that someone whose own party is in fragments from Rajasthan to Chhattisgarh, from Karnataka to Maharashtra (from Gehlot to Pilot, from DK to Siddharamiah) was “advocating and extolling about unity”.
“And another gentleman who is fast losing all relevance in Bihar and has been relegated to third spot in Bihar- namely Nitish Kumar – together with Rahul are hankering for preservation, relevance and unity,” he said targetting the Bihar Chief Minister.
He said that what was even more ironic and strange was the “political conversion and U-turn ” of the “India’s political natwarlal and Pinocchio “– the Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal.
Those who were born from the womb of IAC (India Against Corruption) today have become JFC (Justification for Corruption). From being followers of Anna Hazare now they are followers of Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Poonawalla reminded of the tweets and statements of Arvind Kejriwal in 2011, 2013 and 2015 where he had labelled Lalu Prasad as “corrupt” and someone furthering dynastic politics.
He then wondered how come RJD and Lalu family was now being embraced in an alliance whose objective seemingly is to fight corruption.
Poonawalla asked Kejriwal what had changed? Since 2013 Lalu Yadav has been convicted several times and has got no relief. Tejaswi Yadav, his son, has been named in a Rs 600 cr land-for-job scam and the IRCTC scam. In both these cases no relief has been given to Tejaswi Yadav.
In fact, Poonawalla added that Tejaswi was being investigated in the LFJ scam by CBI and ED and got no relief despite approaching courts for quashing summons.
Poonawalla said that this scam was a “Reverse Robin-hood” scam where poor were being robbed to fill the coffers of the family. He explained how land parcels worth crores were usurped for peanuts from those who wanted Group D jobs at 1/4th the market rates.”
The BJP leader also added that the said scam was first brought to public domain by an ally of RJD – the JDU. It was a “Land do, job lo” scam.
Poonawalla then asked Kejriwal some questions:
1. If prior to 2014 Lalu family was corrupt even before convictions took place how are they suddenly not corrupt after several convictions?
2. How are you giving a “degree of kattar imaandari” to the Lalu family now? Yeh rishta kehlata kya hai?
3. Is this the same “degree of kattar imaandari” you have given to Satyendra Jain, Manish Sisodia who are not getting relief for months from courts? Who have been labelled as kattar be-imaan, hawalebaaz and architect of sharab ghotala by courts?
4. Is it not true yet another revelation has come to the fore where Manish Sisodia – accused no. 1 in sharab ghotala forged and manipulated emails to show public approval for the corrupt sharab niti which AAP was calling as world’s best sharab policy?
5. We can understand the majboori of Nitish Kumar ji but what is the reason why AAP has embraced RJD?
Targetting Rahul Gandhi, Poonawalla said he has no clue of the contributions of Veer Savarkar. On the one hand the Maharashtra government of Shinde and Fadnavis is celebrating the contributions of Savarkar on his Jayanti, on the other hand Rahul Gandhi continues to insult Sawarkar despite the warnings of Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar.
He has disregarded even the views of late Indira Gandhi, Yashwantrao, Chavan, Narsimha Rao and many others on Veer Savarkar’s contribution.
“But what is more surprising is that Uddhav Thackeray who used to be aggressive on this issue – his faction has been turned from the ‘tiger of Hindutva’ to the ‘Bheegi Billi’, of vote bank politics and except issuing a cosmetic statement he cannot say or do anything to Rahul Gandhi who continued to insult Savarkar. As a Maharashtrian I feel pained to see the ideology of Balasaheb Thackeray being disregarded for vote bank by Uddhav”. IANS