JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav on Tuesday met Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and is understood to have discussed the party’s future strategy in view of ally BJP’s revamped posturing as seen in its supposed preparations to project Narendra Modi as the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate.
The two JD(U) leaders also discussed the immediately important issue of BJP patriarch L.K. Advani’s upcoming anti-corruption rath yatra, which is likely to start from Bihar’s Saran district next month, and its possible impacts on the JD(U)’s future prospects in Bihar and outside, said party sources.
Mr Kumar, who has refused to attach any national significance to the Gujarat chief minister’s three-day sadbhavna mission fast, reportedly proposed that the JD(U) should not oppose Mr Advani’s yatra because it is basically a political campaign against corruption. “Kumar pointed out that Advani’s yatra, if it starts from Bihar, would be another emphatic corroboration of the Bihar government’s ongoing crusade against corruption,” said JD(U) a source close to the chief minister.
Having evidently agreed to Mr Kumar’s suggestion, Mr Yadav told journalists that JD(U) leaders would take part in Mr Advani’s anti-corruption yatra “if we are invited”. Mr Yadav, however, refused to comment on the issue of the BJP eventually projecting Mr Modi as the NDA’s PM candidate. JD(U) leaders believe the strategy of supporting the yatra and opposing Mr Modi’s PM candidacy would be in the best interests of the JD(U).
regional party that is keen to see Mr Kumar in India’s top post.