The suspense over possibilities of the BJP’s Hindutva icon and Gujarat chief minister, Mr Narendra Modi, coming to campaign for Bihar’s Assembly polls is getting thicker even as the strained relations between the JD(U) and the BJP, which form Bihar’s ruling coalition, still hang in balance.
But the BJP leaders, sensing the sulky moods in the JD(U) camp ever since the public snub to BJP leaders by chief minister Nitish Kumar of the JD(U) on June 12, are treading cautiously about making any declarations about the evidently high possibilities of getting Mr Modi to campaign in Bihar for the November polls. Senior BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy’s statement on Monday indicating Mr Modi campaigning in Bihar had evoked sharp reactions from the JD(U).
On Wednesday, BJP national spokesperson Syed Shahnawaz Hussain was cagey in his reply to questions about the party’s stand on bringing Mr Modi to campaign in Bihar. “For us, who campaigns for the BJP in Bihar is not a priority. We are concentrating on Bihar’s development under the leadership of Nitish Kumar and Sushil Kumar Modi,” he said in Patna.
Mr Hussain, who is the only Muslim BJP member of the Lok Sabha and the only member from Bihar in the BJP’s 20-member central election committee constituted by party chief Nitin Gadkar, on Tuesday, however, said that the BJP would decide on the issue at the “appropriate time”. This statement, according to BJP sources, was “one more step closer to the final affirmative answer”.
Meanwhile, several BJP leaders in Bihar are admitting in private that Mr Modi coming to campaign for the state elections is a certainty. “That was the reason behind the entire idea of getting the party’s national executive meeting to Patna and inviting Modiji here. He has already broken the irrational boycott thrust upon him in Bihar. He also endeared himself to Bihar’s people by his speech,” said a senior BJP functionary.