India, June 11 -- Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday slammed Narendra Modi for his alleged remarks on 'caste politics' in the state and said the Gujarat chief minister should keep his own house in order first before making comments on others. Nitish said: "Modi should keep his own house in order and not comment on others."
"He should look at his own state's condition," said the Bihar chief minister.
Earlier on Sunday, the ruling Janta Dal (U) and opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar reacted sharply to Narendra Modi's reported remarks blaming "festering caste politics" in Bihar as the main reason of its backwardness. Modi, during a public meeting in Rajkot, had reportedly said that Bihar, at one point of time, was a political and spiritual leader of the country, but it slipped into socio-economical backwardness ever since the casteist leadership took to centre stage, without taking names of individual politicians.
Rejecting Modi's perception of Bihar politics, JD(U) Spokesman and MLC Neeraj Kumar said that rapid strides made by the state in terms of economic development under chief minister Nitish Kumar's leadership since 2005 presented a different picture of the state, its people and polity.
"The state government has attained a consistently high growth rate - even better than Gujarat and is on course to become a developed state in due course of time," said Kumar.
The RJD alleged that Modi has no business to cast aspersion on others even as he was himself accused of unleashing terror on the religious minorities in Gujarat.
Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president Chaudhary Mehboob Ali Kaiser echoed Modi's views that the casteist leadership and caste-based polity in Bihar has dented the stocks of Bihar and that the latter was "right in his perception."
But for the Congress, all other political parties in Bihar have used and nurtured various caste groups for political and electoral benefits, he claimed.
Published by HT Syndication with permission from Hindustan Times.
Published by HT Syndication with permission from Hindustan Times.
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