Bihar govt takes down article criticising Indira Gandhi, BJP accuses Nitish of acting under Congress' pressure

BJP on Monday charged Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with removing the controversial article on Indira Gandhi's alleged ill treatment of Jayprakash Narayan from the official website "under pressure from the Congress", while urging Kumar to come out clean on whether the write-up was true or false.

"The article is a historical fact. But under pressure from the Congress, the state government got it removed," senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said in a statement. "CM Nitish Kumar had said that he did not work under pressure from anybody. But, his government is taking decisions sometimes under pressure from RJD chief Lalu Prasad and sometimes from the Congress," he said.

Modi maintained that the state government should clearly state whether it was not true that the "late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had put Loknayak Jayprakash Narayan in jail during emergency and subjected him to torture which led to his death...isn't Congress responsible for the death of JP." The BJP leader, a disciple of the socialist leader said, "For the sake of protecting the government, the secular alliance is trying to change history. The question arises whether the state government would now stop the honorarium being paid to participants of JP movement under pressure from the Congress."

Modi said that Nitish Kumar had claimed that he himself was a follower of Ram Manohar Lohia and JP. First he made a mockery of it by joining hands with the Congress to form government in the state and the same government was now indulging in removing JP's history, he said. BJP would not allow this to happen, the leader of opposition in Legislative Council said.

Sushil Modi's colleague Nand Kishore Yadav in another statement also accused the Nitish Kumar government of tweaking facts under pressure from the Congress. "Emergency was a black chapter in the history of India...it's unfortunate that Nitish Kumar got it removed from the official site under pressure from its ally Congress," Yadav, who served jail during the JP movement, said.