Bihar chief minister and JD(U) strongman Nitish Kumar’s deepening aloofness towards his Gujarat counterpart and BJP icon Narendra Modi drew open criticism from a senior BJP minister in Bihar’s JD(U)-BJP coalition government on Thursday.
As BJP leaders in Bihar noted with quiet discomfort the way the JD(U) had started adopting a more aggressive stance towards Modi, senior BJP leader and animal husbandry minister Giriraj Singh voiced the national party’s rising indignation at Mr Kumar.
Mr Singh, who was one of the three top BJP leaders from Bihar who attended Mr Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in Gandhinagar on Wednesday, indicated that the summary boycott of the NDA’s grand Gujarat event by Mr Kumar and the JD(U) had not gone down well with the BJP.
“The media had earlier highlighted their (Modi and Kumar’s) friendship, but this friendship has now slumped to a level where even the simple courtesy of offering congratulations on one’s success is not performed. Such a scenario shows an absence of sociability and cultured behaviour,” said Mr Singh, who has been an outspoken advocate of Mr Modi’s candidature in the NDA for the Prime Minister’s post.
“The media might have speculated on it (Kumar congratulating Modi on poll victory and attending his swearing-in ceremony), but we (BJP) were not expecting it. What was surprising was not who went to Gujarat or did not, but who offered congratulations or did not,” he told journalists. The JD(U) did not react to Mr Singh’s statements, which may set off a fresh bout of verbal clash between leaders of the two parties.