Moily puts foot in mouth, Cong sacks him | Watch

New Delhi: A day after he made strong remarks against Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar - emerging as Indian politics' most-wanted - an embarrassed Congress has removed spokesperson Veerappa Moily as its media chair.

While party sources say Moily has been dropped as the AICC media head because “the party High Command is unhappy with his stand on some critical issues”, it's clear the trigger was his speaking out of party's line on JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar, who the party is seen to be actively pursuing as an ally.

On Friday, Moily said the Congress would not make a hero of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who had rebuffed the party's overtures to reach out to him.

Moily also accused Nitish of following a mix of communal and secular agenda – a statement which may not have agreed with the party seen to be wooing Nitish.

Moily also said Nitish "thinks too much of himself and will regret staying with BJP. We are not reaching out to him. If he wants to be in the communal cauldron, it's up to him".

But his statement on Nitish was not the only reason behind Congress' move. Sources say a series of mistakes by Moily started on Thursday when he, addressing a press conference, indicated that the RJD and the LJP were no longer a a part of the UPA - a statement that may have miffed UPA's two key allies.

The Congress spokesperson also accused the two allies of "insulting" the party over seat-sharing in Bihar. "We should be more angry. We never wronged them... It's only Paswan (Ram Vilas Paswan of LJP) and Laluji (Lalu Prasad of RJD) for reasons best known to them, they left us only two seats," Moily told reporters.

Congress strategy is to woo Nitish Kumar and also keep Lalu and Paswan happy at the same time and Moily's statements, sources say, upset that fine equilibrium the party was trying to maintain.

According to party sources, Janardhan Dwivedi, AICC General Secretary, in-charge of organisation, has taken over the media department.

Moily had given the charge to Dwivedi when he went to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Karnataka recently.