Patna,(BiharTimes): Senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi said that Nitish Kumar cancelled the dinner to the members of the BJP’s national executive in Patna on June 12, 2010 after the saffron party refused to accept the humiliating condition laid down by the Bihar chief minister.

According to the then finance minister of Bihar, Nitish wanted to keep the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi away from the dinner. This was totally unacceptable to the BJP top brass.SuMo said that the BJP leadership was so furious over the eleventh hour cancellation of the dinner that they wanted to
snap its ties with the Janata Dal (United) then and there.

But Nitish persuaded the BJP bigwigs not to do so as it would help Lalu Prasad led RJD to bounce back in the Assembly election to be held later in Oct-Nov the same year.SuMo said that his party swallowed the humiliation to stop the likely return of Lalu.

However, it is the samed Nitish who four years later joined hands with the same Lalu Prasad.Sushil Modi is of the view that Nitish made up his mind to snap ties with the BJP after the saffron party’s very good performance in the Assembly election of 2010. As he had made the battle with Narendra Modi a personal one Nitish was always in the look out to break the JD(U)-BJP ties which he ultimately did on June 16, 2013.

What is strange is that exactly a week after the cancellation of dinner Nitish on June 19 returned Rs five crore donated by the Narendra Modi government of Gujarat to the flood victims of Kosi. The entire region was devastated in a massive deluge in August 2008, which led to the killing of thousands of people and cattle.Incidentally, SuMo’s statement came after Nitish broke his silence on the issue after about five years.