NEW DELHI (TIP): Continuing to rile Narendra Modi, JD(U) on April 5 mocked Gujarat CM for his comment that after having served Gujarat he was ready to pay his debt to the country. A day after Modi’s comment at a book launch event in Ahmedabad was widely interpreted as his desire to take a shy at prime ministership, JD(U) MP Shivanand Tiwari said that Modi’s expression of gratitude to the country was just a cloak for his ambition to move to national stage. The outspoken JD(U) leader rubbed it in by saying that Modi’s ambitions may go unfulfilled. “What does he mean? Isn’t serving Gujarat same as serving India? If a man serves his village, he serves India. Nitish Kumar is serving Bihar and by that virtue alone he is serving the country.When a political leader says that, it only reflects his national ambitions.

But only 2014 will decide who will sit in Delhi?” said Tiwari. He added, “It is the duty of every child to repay the debt he owes to Mother India. Not only Modi, every child and citizen owes a debt to Mother India…it is his duty to repay the debt whenever an opportunity arises.” Significantly, BJP did not react to the attack even though all available indications point to the party fast coming around to let Modi play the central role in its campaign for 2014 polls.

This was the second provocation from JD(U). The NDA partner, which has been chaffing at the prospect of BJP projecting Modi as its PM candidate, had earlier attacked him for the Lokayukta Bill. Tiwari’s colleague Ali Anwar has called the Gujarat legislation on ombudsman “toothless”, echoing the criticism of Modi’s arch rival, Congress. The BJP had ignored previous anti- Modi swipe as well. JD(U), which is eyeing the sizeable Muslim vote in Bihar, has consistently expressed its reservations about Modi’s elevation in BJP’s scheme of things for 2014, and has threatened to walk out of the NDA if its views were not heeded by the saffron outfit.