Patna, June 10: The ruling JD(U) and Opposition RJD on Sunday reacted sharply to Gujarat CM Narendra Modi’s reported remarks blaming “festering caste politics” in Bihar as the main reason of its backwardness.
Mr 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 centrestage, without taking names of individual politicians.”
Rejecting Mr 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 CM Nitish Kumar 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,” he said. The RJD alleged that Mr Modi has no business to cast aspersions on others even as he was himself accused of unleashing terror on the religious minorities in Gujarat.