Relations between Bihar’s ruling alliance partners JD(U) and BJP, already strained due to their differences of opinion on Gujarat’s BJP chief minister Narendra Modi, suffered another blow on Saturday when JD(U) MP and former minister, Monazir Hassan, called for severance of ties with the BJP.
Mr Hassan, a JD(U) MP from Begusarai and a prominent Muslim figure in the JD(U), said the regional party would perform better in Bihar’s six-phase Assembly polls, scheduled from October 21 to November 20, if it contested on its own. Mr Hassan’s statement shocked many leaders both in the JD(U) and the BJP because it came on a day when JD(U) national president Sharad Yadav claimed that the ongoing seat-sharing talks between the two parties were almost completed and that a formal announcement was likely in a day or two.
“There is now no point in continuing with them (BJP) any longer. The JD(U) would certainly do much better if it contests the polls alone. I have told this to our (JD-U) leadership,” said Mr Hassan in an outspoken expression of his growing frustration with the BJP in the wake of rising possibilities of Modi being invited to campaign for Bihar’s Assembly polls.
Mr Hassan has also earlier been openly critical of the JD(U)-BJP alliance due to fears of the possible negative impacts on the JD(U)’s Muslim vote bank expected from the BJP’s Hindutva leanings.
Before Mr Hassan, JD(U) Rajya Sabha MP and national spokesman Shivanand Tiwari had on Monday said the JD(U) could reconsider its alliance with the BJP if the latter insisted on inviting Mr Modi for campaigning despite steadfast opposition from the JD(U) leadership.
Mr Modi had visited Bihar for the first time since the 2002 Gujarat communal riots in June this year to attend the BJP’s national executive meeting in Patna. Advertisements in newspapers showing him and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar together had sparked off an unseemly row between the two NDA allies that led to Mr Kumar’s controversial move of returning to the Gujarat government the cheque for `5 crore it had given as aid for Bihar’s 2008 Kosi flood tragedy.