Amit Shah targets Rahul Gandhi; makes controversial comment on Manipur ambush

PTI
BEGUSARAI, SEPTEMBER 30

BJP president Amit Shah today attacked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, accusing him of backstabbing the NDA by snapping ties and said it was in line with his habit of “deceit” to grab power.
“Nitish Kumar betrayed George Fernandes, who gave him (Kumar) a national identity, and more recently, Jitan Ram Manjhi. Where is George Fernandes today? He has been forced to spend ‘gumnaami ki zindagi’ (a life of obscurity)?” he said.
Addressing a BJP workers’ conference at Begusarai, about 100 km from the state capital, the BJP chief said the Modi government attached great importance to national security, which will never be compromised.
“Rahul Baba – no now dares to slaughter our soldiers. If anybody engages in a misadventure, we enter Burma’s borders and our forces take them out, that’s what Narendra Modi’s government is all about.
“You wouldn’t know understand this because you have got your perspective from your mother’s side of the family,” he said, apparently referring to the army’s counteroffensive against insurgents along the Myanmar border in June following the killing of 18 soldiers in an ambush in Manipur.
Shah said the saffron party had given a leadership role to Kumar in the NDA and assisted him throughout “even at the cost of insult to BJP workers” to prevent return of ‘jungle raj’ in Bihar.
“But, in tune with his behaviour he stabbed BJP in the back and joined hands with Lalu Prasad for the sake of power,” he said, and asked BJP workers to spread the truth among voters.
Shah also targeted RJD supremo Lalu Prasad for trying to create a controversy over reservations for backward castes and dalits and asserted BJP was not against quotas for them.
“Lalu Prasad is nowadays talking about reservation for backwards and dalits and accusing the BJP of intending to end reservation which is not true. BJP has been in favour of reservation for backwards and dalits since the promulgation of Constitution and is not in favour of any review,” he said.
The BJP chief accused Prasad of harping on the issue to “divert the attention of voters from the issue of jungle raj.”