Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi days after he was called “new father of the nation” by Amruta Fadnavis, wife of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Several opposition leaders apart from Nitish Kumar have objected to the remark and the drawing of comparison between PM Modi and Mahatma Gandhi, hailed as the father of the nation.
“What have they done for independence? The RSS had no contribution in the fight for freedom. My father took part in the independence struggle. And even though I was born after the colonial rule ended, but we got to understand everything,” Nitish Kumar is heard saying in a video posted by news agency ANI. The Janata Dal (United) leader had ended his association with the BJP last year in Bihar when he took oath as the chief minister of Bihar again following his return to Mahagathbadhan with the RJD and the Congress.
“Can we ever forget the contribution by Mahatma Gandhi?” he asked as went to target Prime Minister Modi. “New father of new nation – but what have you done for the nation? Has anything significant be done? How has India progressed? The only thing that has happened is that new technology has been developed.” Further alleging that “media no longer has freedom”, the JD(U) leader stressed that comments by opposition leaders do not get airtime.
His sharp response was for the comments by Amruta Fadnavis. “India has two fathers of the nation. One belonged to the India of yore and the other is for a new India. I believe that Mahatma Gandhi is the ‘Father of the Nation’ of India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the ‘Father of the Nation’ of new India,” she said last week, ANI reported, at an event in Nagpur.
Later, Rajya Sabha MP and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut asked the BJP if they agreed with the comment. “Today in the new India, ghosts of hunger, poverty, unemployment, terrorism are raising their head. Making Modi the father of new India is an insult to him,” he wrote in his party’s mouthpiece ‘Saamana’.
