Bihar’s ruling BJP leaders found partial relief in the vocal assertions made by ally JD(U) at its national summit in Delhi on Saturday and remained anxious about the regional party’s unbending position on Narendra Modi on the issue of secularism.
The JD(U)’s strong clarifications that its stalwart and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar was not in the prime ministerial race and that the JD(U) would have no alliance with the Congress brought cheers among Bihar’s BJP leaders. With this, a worried BJP felt assured that Bihar’s coalition government would complete its full term till November 2015. In Bihar’s 243-member Assembly, the JD(U) currently has 115 MLAs, just six short of a majority figure needed to form a government on its own, while ally BJP has 91.
Bihar’s BJP leaders, bitterly opposed to the JD(U)’s insistence on the BJP naming its PM candidate well before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, welcomed the ally’s new willingness to wait till the saffron party declares the name. “This is a very good move. There is no need to cry so hoarse long before the polls are declared,” said top BJP leader and animal husbandry minister Giriraj Singh, a vocal supporter of Mr Modi’s prime ministerial candidature.
BJP national vice-president and former Bihar unit chief C.P. Thakur, known for his unflinching advocacy for Mr Modi’s projection as PM candidate, however, said: “When the time comes, the JD(U) will agree (to Modi as PM)”. This view was echoed by most BJP leaders while JD(U) leaders rubbished such a possibility.
The JD(U)’s open denunciation of Mr Modi for the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim riots made BJP leaders both jittery and angry. They were afraid the JD(U) might continue to prevent Mr Modi from visiting Bihar, first for the BJP’s Hunkar rally in October and then for campaigning in the 2014 LS polls.
Many in the BJP feel Mr Modi’s presence in Bihar’s campaigns is necessary to boost the party’s electoral chances.