Numerous posters of Gujarat chief minister and BJP strongman Narendra Modi were displayed by BJP workers and leaders on Friday during the rallies the party organised in Patna and other places in Bihar to protest against the UPA government’s economic policies and corruption.
Even as harsher diatribes were exchanged by senior leaders of Bihar’s ruling allies BJP and JD(U) over their worsening differences on Modi and secularism, hundreds of ardent supporters of Modi in the BJP held aloft his large photographs and chanted slogans like “Narendra Modi, zindabaad”.
The JD(U), angered by frequent statements being issued by Bihar’s BJP leaders against chief minister Nitish Kumar ever since his veiled attack on Modi’s prime ministerial chances, adopted a combative stance and asked the BJP to break away from the alliance government in power in the state for the last seven years.
“We (JD-U) are not stopping them (BJP) from quitting the alliance that came to power only due to Nitish Kumar’s leadership and personal popularity. If they quit, they will know where they stand. They will remain neither three nor 13,” said JD(U) state spokesman Sanjay Singh.
Reacting to anti-Nitish statements by senior BJP minister Giriraj Singh and BJP’s Bihar president C.P. Thakur, Mr Singh said: “These people (BJP leaders) must stop threatening us (JD-U). People who fail to win even municipal polls but have become ministers due to JD(U)’s strength are today issuing threats, and we will not tolerate it. We (JD-U) are not dependent on the BJP”.
BJP MLA Rameshwar Chaurasia said: “During all those events, like Godhra, we (BJP) were secular for them (JD-U). They stayed with us because they needed us then. But now, since they have come close to a full majority (in Bihar Assembly), they are speaking in such tones. They must stop predicting the BJP’s future”.