Patna:  Nitish Kumar has added to his list of many epithets for former partner the BJP, the term “hollow party.” He has based his assessment on a BJP leader’s clarification that no Bihar Police officer had advised the party to cancel its rally held soon after a series of blasts rocked Patna last month.

Mr Kumar is agitated because the BJP has claimed that his administration was deliberately casual about the security of its presumptive Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is the Bihar Chief Minister’s political rival. Just before Mr Modi was scheduled to arrive at the Gandhi Maidan venue on October 27, six blasts ripped through the city in quick succession killing six people and injuring over 80.   

Last week, BJP president Rajnath Singh in a TV interview took the high moral ground claiming that some policemen had asked him to cancel Mr Modi’s rally, but they decided to go ahead as cancelling could have led to riots in the state. The Bihar Police has since denied that its officers asked any BJP leader to call off the rally.

Sushil Modi, who is a senior leader of the Bihar BJP, has been quoted by some local papers as saying that party president Rajnath Singh called him up and denied naming the Bihar Police but he said some cops did come to him and suggested not to go ahead with the rally.

Nitish Kumar had complained yesterday that Mr Modi and his party are trying to demoralise the Bihar Police, which, he claimed has done a “commendable job of investigating the Patna blasts.” Sushil Modi’s retraction provoked him to add that the BJP is a “hollow party, one whose claims have no basis.”

The Bihar Chief minister had also described Mr Modi, without naming him, as a “manufacturer of lies” yesterday and said that the terrorists who attacked Patna had helped the BJP by deflecting attention from the fact that Mr Modi’s rally was a “flop show”.

Meenakshi Lekhi of the BJP swiftly retorted, “I can only say that there is a question mark over the mental state of Nitish Kumar.”

Mr Kumar ended a 17-year alliance with the BJP earlier this year, saying he wasn’t prepared to stick around while the BJP promoted Mr Modi to its prime ministerial candidate.