BJP stalwart Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in Gandhinagar as Gujarat’s chief minister had uneasy echoes for the NDA in Patna on Wednesday as both Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar of the JD(U) and deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi of the BJP skipped the grand event.
The JD(U), a crucial ally of the BJP in the NDA, made public its extreme displeasure at perceptions about the Gujarat leader’s increasing prominence within the BJP and the NDA by not sending any representative to attend the swearing-in ceremony. The ambitious regional party, which considers Mr Kumar to be a more suitable prime ministerial candidate in the NDA than Mr Modi, took the step partly out of concerns about possible alienation of its strong Muslim vote-base in Bihar.
After Mr Modi won an emphatic third consecutive term in Gujarat last week, Mr Kumar was the only NDA chief minister who did not congratulate him, thus setting the tone for fresh hostilities between them.
While Mr Kumar’s aides said he was not invited for the swearing-in ceremony by the Gujarat CM, Mr Sushil Modi’s ostensible reason was his preoccupation with the ABVP’s 58th national summit that began in Patna on Wednesday. Mr Modi inaugurated the summit with former foreign secretary J.C. Sharma.