Despite optimistic statements by sections of leaders from both the Janata Dal (United) and the Bharatiya Janata Party about the survival of their distressed Bihar alliance, increasing signs of bitterness between the two parties indicate that a solution is not easy and it might take more time and effort before they make peace.
On Tuesday, only four BJP ministers — out of the party’s total 12 members in Bihar’s NDA government — attended the state Cabinet meeting in another show of muted protest against chief minister Nitish Kumar and his JD(U), bringing relations between the two allies to a new low.
All the BJP ministers had reportedly decided in the morning to stay off the Cabinet meeting en masse, but later agreed to send just four ministers.
This was the first occasion in the NDA’s four-and-a-half year’s government in Bihar when so few BJP ministers attended the Cabinet meeting.
The JD(U), senior partner in the NDA in Bihar, became further alienated from the BJP after a three-member Bihar police team reached Gandhnagar and Surat in Gujarat on Tuesday to probe the origins of the controversial Nitish-Narendra Modi advertisements in Bihar newspapers, which had made matters worse between the two Bihar allies.
A DSP and two sub-inspectors of the Patna police were dispatched to Gujarat reportedly at Mr Kumar’s instance and without any consultation with the BJP. BJP leaders described the move as “needlessly vindictive”.
Three BJP ministers — NDA convenor Nand Kishore Yadav, Ashwini Kumar Chaubey and Janardan Sigriwal — left for Delhi on Tuesday to participate in a meeting with central BJP leaders at the residence of party chief Nitin Gadkari. Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, Bihar BJP president C.P. Thakur and Bihar MP Syed Shahnawaz Hussain were already in Delhi for this meeting, scheduled for late in the evening, to discuss the Bihar alliance crisis.
“We have observed coalition dharma well so far and we will continue to do so. But we demand respect for Bihar and the BJP’s workers for Bihar,” said Mr Chaubey, the PHED minister and party hardliner who has strongly defended Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bihar against the wishes of the JD(U).
Even as Mr Kumar maintained his stoical silence, JD(U) Rajya Sabha member and national spokesperson Shivanand Tiwary said: “The JD(U)-BJP alliance exists and it will continue. There is no need for panic anywhere.”