BJP in mood for patch-up ANAND S.T. DAS
Despite the profound indecision about the virtues of inviting Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and firebrand MP Varun Gandhi to campaign for Bihar’s Assembly polls, the BJP’s Bihar state unit now appears to be in a mood to mend fences with the indignant JD(U) in order to present a united image of the ruling NDA before the Assembly polls.
Sources in the BJP said the party’s Bihar leaders were worried about the continuing stalemate between the JDU) and the BJP over Mr Modi, especially because the state’s Opposition parties were busy projecting it as a certain precursor to an imminent split in the NDA. In their meeting with the BJP’s central leaders in Delhi, almost all leaders from the Bihar unit had highlighted how a protracted stalemate could eventually harm the BJP’s prospects in the November Assembly polls. On Thursday, senior BJP leader Giriraj Singh, minister for cooperatives in the Nitish Kumar-led coalition government, appeared to be shifting away from his earlier stiff position on the JD(U)-BJP acrimony that arose after Mr Kumar publicly protested against advertisements showing his photographs with Mr Modi and then returned the Rs 5 crore that the Gujarat government had given to Bihar as aide for the 2008 Kosi floods.
“It is the need of the hour for us (the BJP) to stay with the JD(U) and contest together for the welfare of Bihar’s nine crore people, who do not want the state to revert to the previous jungle raj,” said Singh, considered a BJP hardliner with roots in the RSS. The Opposition RJD-LJP and the Congress have already written the epitaph for the NDA in Bihar after relations between the BJP and the JD(U) went steadily downhill since the BJP’s national executive meet in Patna.
Post new comment