Patna: Nitish Kumar’s former deputy has launched a tweet attack on the Bihar Chief Minister for allegedly trying to ‘sabotage ‘Narendra Modi’s rally in the state scheduled to be held later this month.

BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, who was the deputy Chief Minister of Bihar till Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United broke its alliance with his party in June, has alleged that Mr Kumar invited President Pranab Mukherjee on the same day when the Gujarat Chief Minister was to hold his rally in Patna.

“Nkumar is playing all tricks to put hurdles in success of NAMO’s Hunkar Rally on 27th Oct. First permission for whole Maidan was denied. Now Nkumar has invited President of India to Patna on the same dates. He will be in Patna on 26th &27th (sic),” Bihar’s Modi tweeted today.

“The whole city will be barricaded for President’s visit? Namo’s plane will not be allowed to land till President’s spl plane takes off?” he added.

However, sources in Mr Kumar’s government claim that the President’s schedule is decided by his office. The sources also said that on October 27, when Mr Modi’s rally is planned in Patna, the President will be going to Bhojpur to attend a function with Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar. Mr Kumar is reportedly expected to make a statement on the controversy tomorrow.

Yesterday, a leader from Mr Kumar’s party, Pradeep Yadav wrote a letter to the Bihar Chief Minister, urging him to cancel Mr Modi’s rally in the state. “I also request you not to hesitate in arresting Modi if he dares to hold this rally in anyway,” the JD(U) youth wing national general secretary Pradeep Yadav said in the letter.

The JD(U) and the BJP were partners for 17 years before they fell out over the elevation of Mr Modi as the campaign chief of the BJP. Sushil Modi is seen as a Narendra Modi loyalist and the Bihar unit of the BJP was the first to request the party leadership, through a resolution, to name Mr Modi the party’s presumptive PM.