“Ghatiya Kitaab” : Sushil Modi On Lalu’s Autobiography

“At least 100 factual mistakes in the first four chapters,” Bihar Deputy CM Sushil Modi said about Lalu’s book.

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Saturday, 14 April, called jailed Rashtriya Janata Dal national president Lalu Prasad Yadav’s autobiography, “a poorly written book” which was “replete with factual mistakes”.

“I have gone through the autobiography. Such a ghatiya kitab (poorly written book),” the senior BJP leader said at a press conference in Patna on 13 April, when asked about the former chief minister’s recently published Gopalganj to Raisina - My Political Journey. The book has been co-authored by former journalist Nalin Verma.

“I must have found at least 100 factual mistakes in the first four chapters,” remarked Modi with a grimace about the more than 250-page-long book which has been in the news since its publication, over the various claims it makes.

Modi, however, ducked queries about the assertion by Yadav’s wife Rabri Devi that the RJD supremo was right in having said that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had sent feelers through former poll strategist and now the national vice president of his JD(U), Prashant Kishor, about his willingness to realign with the Grand Alliance.

“When Prashant Kishor has himself come out with his denial, the BJP has nothing to say about it,” Modi said, dismissing speculation about claims made by Prasad that all was not well between the BJP and the Chief Minister’s JD(U).

Notably, Modi has known both Kumar and Yadav since the 1970s, when all three were active in student politics and had taken part in the J movement.

In an interview to a private news channel a few months ago, Modi had asserted I have known Lalu Prasad Yadav at close quarters. I know him better than his wife does.

Interestingly, in one of the many published excerpts from the book, Yadav has accused Modi of having complained to Jayaprakash Narayan that he consumed liquor.

I told JP I drink toddy sometimes. Baba (Shivanand Tiwary, currently his partys national vice-president) sometimes smokes cannabis, says the RJD supremo in the book.