Patna:
"I am no Rambo," retorted Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in an apparent jibe at Narendra Modi who was taunted over reports that he had rescued 15,000 Gujarati pilgrims from flood-ravaged Uttarakhand in a day.
Nearly three weeks after he parted ways with the BJP ending JD(U)'s 17-year alliance with the NDA over Modi being made the party's election campaign chief, Kumar fired a fresh salvo at the Gujarat chief minister.
"I am not Rambo type of personality. I do not have that kind of potential," he told reporters emerging from "Janata Ke Darbar me Mukhya Mantri" programme after BJP accused him of not taking timely action to rescue Bihari pilgrims stuck in Uttarakhand.
Amid reports that Modi had rescued 15,000 Gujarati pilgrims from Uttarakhand in a single day, Congress had scoffed at the claim, dubbing the BJP leader 'Rambo'. BJP leaders had later stated that Modi had never made any such claim.
Rambo is an action film series based on the David Morrell novel 'First Blood' and starring Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo, a troubled Vietnam War veteran and former Green Beret who is skilled in many aspects of survival, weaponry, hand to hand combat and guerrilla warfare.
Dismissing BJP's allegations, Kumar said, "As soon as we got to know of the tragedy, the state government deputed a team of senior officials to coordinate relief and rehabilitation action there.
The chief minister said he had spoken to his Uttarakhand counterpart Vijay Bahuguna and contributed Rs 5 crore to the relief fund.
"I myself presided over several meetings of state disaster management team and gave necessary direction to help the stranded devotees," he said.
On the allegation levelled by his former NDA partner, Kumar said, "This is nothing but a reflection of low level politics practised by them. Natural calamity and human tragedies should not be part of politics. It should not be an issue of finger pointing on each other."
"I cannot stoop to such low level on such humanitarian issue like them," he said.
Seeking to turn the tables on BJP's accusation of betraying people's mandate of 2010 Assembly polls, Kumar said, "The mandate was for development of Bihar and not for slogans they are raising for a person and his state (Gujarat).
"This justifies my decision to part company with them. I was in a delusion about them. Thank god my party took a decision at the right time," he said showing no signs of burying the hatchet.
