JD-U wary of BJP’s new mascot Modi

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With Gujrat chief minister Narendra Modi’s elevation to chief election campaigner staying intact after BJP patriarch L.K. Advani retracted his resignations, the top leadership of the key NDA ally, JD(U), has gone into a huddle. With the realisation dawning on the JD(U) that Mr Advani’s authority has taken an irrevocable blow, the party is weighing the option of stitching up another front with regional parties as its key constituents.
“Sharadji and Nitishji (party chief Sharad Yadav and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar) will speak to each other tonight on the political developments in the context of Mr Advani accepting the rejection of his resignation by the BJP parliamentary board. We will react to the development only after the senior leaders discuss the political situations,” said JD(U) national general secretary K.C. Tyagi.
However, the gloom within the JD(U) camp apparently grew further, with party leaders admitting that it’s now an end of the “Atal-Advani” era in the BJP. “As long as Mr Advani was on the forefront of the BJP, he acted as a buffer against the RSS. But the BJP has now got a new mascot in Mr Modi, with the RSS calling the shots. We sense that the BJP will now return to the communal brand of politics and we have to position ourselves accordingly,” said a senior JD(U) functionary.
Mr Kumar, who had set a time limit for the BJP to name its prime ministerial candidate by the end of this year, has been in touch with Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik in his bid to keep the pot boiling for a front of the regional parties. Mr Kumar and Ms Banerjee are averse to the idea of aligning with the Congress, with the former carrying the legacy of the anti-Congress brand of politics while the latter still smarting under “humiliation” at the hands of the Congress. Additionally, the Muslim constituency is dear to both Mr Kumar and Ms Banerjee, which is likely to keep them at a fair distance from the saffron poster boy Mr Modi. Mr Patnaik, on the other hand, considers the Congress the principal foe in state politics and has reservations against Mr Modi. The JD(U) is hopeful that TDP chief N. Chandra Babu Naidu will be its natural ally for having done business with him earlier too.