Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to campaign in the Bihar Assembly polls, senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said on Monday, suggesting that his magic need not work in “every place”.
At the same time, Ms Swaraj made it clear that Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had not put any condition on the issue of Mr Modi campaigning.
She said that it would be better if the “old arrangement” continued under which Mr Modi had not campaigned during the 2005 Bihar Assembly polls and the 2009 general elections.
“Modi’s magic and charisma have worked in Gujarat ... but it is not necessary that everybody’s magic works at every place,” she said.
“In Bihar, the magic of Nitish Kumar and Sushil Kumar Modi is at work ... And we are confident of our victory for carrying forward development,” Ms Swaraj told reporters here.
“Nitishji has put no condition before us whether or not Narendra Modi should campaign in Bihar. The decision of who should or should not campaign in Bihar has been the sole discretion of BJP,” Ms Swaraj said.
On the recent statement of the chief minister that the ideology of the JD(U) was different from that of the BJP, she said, “If the ideologies of both parties were similar, then both would have merged into one party.”
“Kumar has been right in his stand that though the ideologies of the two parties are different, we have worked together keeping in view the common minimum programme for governance and delivered the goods,” she said. —PTI