Stating that Nitish’s statement was a part of a strategy to divert the people’s attention from the failure of his government the CPI ML leader said that Samata Party––the earlier version of Janata Dal (United)––was the first major national party to join hands with NDA soon after demolition of Babri Mosque.

Not only that Nitish’s secular soul did not revolt when the Gujarat riots took place in 2002 when he was the Railway Minister in the BJP-led government.

By merely questioning the secular credentials of Modi the Bihar chief minister would never pass the litmus test for secular image, he added.

He also said that Nitish gave up his social justice agenda by compromising with the feudal forces. It was further clear by the way he handled the violence after the killing of Ranvir Sena chief and the hurried manner in whichb the matter was referred to the CBI.

He urged the Centre to order a high-level probe in the murder of an alleged terror suspect Mohammad Qateel Siddique, who was killed by a fellow inmate in Yervada jail, Pune (Maharashtra) recently.

Earlier, while taking part in a dharna organized by Nagrik Pahal at Kargil Chowk against the recent arrest of some Muslim youths from Darbhanga Dipankar Bhattacharya strongly critized the Centre as well as the state governments. He dubbed the witch-hunting against youths as link in the same chain and blamed the global capitalism for it.

Also who spoke on the occasion were social and human rights activists Satya Narayan Madan, Mahendra Yadav, Anish Ankur, Zahid Ansari, Rupesh, Zafar Imam Ansari, Father Philip Manthra, Kanchal Bala, Naiyer Fatmi and Krishna Murari, RJD leader, Ghulam Ghouse, CPI(M) leader, Sarvodaya Sharma, state Jamat-e-Islami chief, Naiyer uz Zaman, former director of A N Sinha Institute, Mahendra Narayan Karna, and many others.

Kafil Akhtar’s brother Shakeel Akhtar and Faseh Mehmood’s wife Nikhat Parween also took part in it. The two were arrested from Darbhanga and Saudi Arabia respectively.