Nitish destroyed Lohia's legacy, says Jaitley

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has destroyed the legacy of socialist ideologue Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia by aligning with the Congress for the coming state assembly polls.

"Those doing politics in the name of Lohia-ji are now visiting All India Congress Committee office for press conferences everyday. The legacy of Lohia-ji has been destroyed by them," Jaitley said while launching the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha's "panch kranti abhiyan" here.

Citing the rankings of the recent World Bank survey on state-wise ease of doing business, Jaitley said, "Nitish-ji challenges us to debate the issue of development. What is there to debate? Gujarat is number 1 and Bihar stands at 21."

He also took a dig at Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad along with Nitish.

"Lalu-ji ruled Bihar for 15 years and Nitish-ji has completed 10 years in power. They have ruled the state for 25 long years. It's a long time to develop any state. Bihar has even fallen below (the level of) north-eastern and hill states," Jaitley said.

He said the National Democratic Alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party would win the October-November Bihar polls.

"It will be a repeat of what happened during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls," he said.