Nitish clarifies as BJP releases an old video of him praising Modi

New Delhi: A day after JD(U)'s bitter exit from the NDA, the BJP has now released a 2003 video which shows Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the then railways minister in the NDA government, praising Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. He is seen congratulating Modi for his electoral win and calling the Gujarat riots a sad incident which people must move on from.

The video has now led to a new war of words between the JD(U) and the BJP. In the video, Nitish said, "I hope that Narendra Modi will not confine his services to Gujarat and will soon serve the nation. The Gujarat riots were sad. But we have to move on. It's not right to focus only on one incident."

It is a huge change of stance from then to now with Nitish Kumar breaking the alliance over Narendra Modi. However, clarifying his speech on Monday, Nitish said whatever he spoke in that video was not political.

"When I used to visit other states as a railway minister, those speeches were never political. It's part of the protocol to praise the host state and not to speak against them," Nitish said.

The BJP, meanwhile, denied releasing the speech and saying it was just shared again. "We have not released the video, we had this video in the archives we just shared it. The video shows when he (Nitish Kumar) was the Railway Minister what he spoke and today how he has become secular," BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain said.