Waqt-waqt ki baat...

PATNA: Time was when Nitish Kumar was wary of the company of Narendra Modi. So furious was he when he saw an advertorial frame featuring him and Modi in 2010 that he returned Rs 5 crore given by the Gujarat government for flood relief in Bihar and cancelled a dinner hosted by him for BJP politicians, including Modi who was then Gujarat CM. Five years on, the Bihar CM was seen sharing the dais with the PM and heard appealing to him for generous assistance to his backward state.
Not that Nitish met Modi and pleaded for central assistance for the first time. But Saturday saw the two together making their first public appearance since JD (U) and BJP, parted ways in 2013. The PM did not recall those ugly days apparently because they were attending official functions -- a Union government function at which Modi inaugurated development projects and a national conference of Indian Council for Agricultural Research in Patna.
But Modi’s speech at a party rally at Muzaffarpur later in the day opened with an acerbic reference to “waqt-waqt ki baat”. “A Bihar politician would once ridicule my tweets, saying I chirp a lot. Today, Nitish Kumar posted a tweet to welcome me to Bihar,” he said.
Modi also replied to Nitish’s charge that he was visiting Bihar 14 months after becoming PM. There was a time, he said, when Nitish would say Bihar has got its own Modi (Nitish’s then deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi of BJP) and, therefore, another Modi was not needed in Bihar. “Kehte thein Bihar mein ghusne nahi denge. Ab judaai bardasht nahi hoti; ek-ek din bhari pad raha tha 14 mahine se,” he said.
The PM had not forgotten the humiliation caused by the cancellation of an invite to lunch after publication of the Gujarat government ad which also talked about the help to Bihar for flood relief. “A Yaduvanshi neta says he swallowed poison (by accepting Nitish as CM candidate of the Grand Alliance for the upcoming state assembly election). I also swallowed poison years ago when Nitish Kumar ne mere saamne se khane ki thali kheench li thi,” Modi said, repeatedly asking the crowd if it was proper to do this to any invitee and the crowd roaring “no” every time.