Patna, June 13: A day after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar voiced displeasure over newspaper advertisements showing him with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, pressure was building within his Janata Dal-United (JD-U) party to snap ties with alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).While BJP denies any rift with the two NDA allies also accuses congress led UPA government of “systematic manoeuvres to destabilize and derail” non-Congress or non-UPA state governments and especially targeting popular BJP chief ministers like Narendra Modi of Gujarat.
Meanwhile Nitish Kumar said he was stunned on seeing the advertisement.Some party members sees it as an opportune time for the party to break off with the BJP and go alone in the upcoming assembly elections Two JD-U MPs — Monazir Hasan and Rajiv Ranjan — suggested that the chief minister sever ties with the BJP. Monazir Hasan, JD-U MP from Begusarai, told that it was an opportune time for the party to break off with the BJP and go it alone in the upcoming assembly polls. “The advertisements were part of a big conspiracy to stop the JD-U from coming to power again,” Hasan, who is close to Nitish Kumar, said.
Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh, a rebel JD-U MP, said it was a god-sent opportunity for Nitish Kumar to make the move. “The advertisement and the visit of Modi as well as of Varun Gandhi to Bihar, despite reservations expressed by the JD-U, has proved that BJP is playing politics,” he said. Singh, a friend-turned-foe of Nitish Kumar, said: “Nitish Kumar should snap ties with the BJP to go it alone in the October-November assembly polls.”
Singh reminded Nitish Kumar that BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers welcomed Modi and Varun Gandhi by shouting slogans like “Jai Shri Ram” when they arrived in the city Saturday morning. “By inviting Modi and Varun, the BJP is eager to experiment the Gujarat agenda of hatred politics,” Singh said.
Former Bihar chief minister and senior JD-U leader Jagannath Mishra said Nitish Kumar should seriously think whether to continue with the BJP.
On the other hand Party spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain dismissed reports that Arun Jaitley and M. Venkaiah Naidu had rushed to meet Nitish and pacify him. “He (Nitish) is not upset,” Hussain said.
Sources, however, said Jaitley and Naidu had been prevented from going to Nitish by the BJP’s Bihar MLAs. The MLAs apparently said that if the leaders decided to humour Nitish on this point, they might as well merge the BJP with the Janata Dal (United).
An upset Nitish Kumar Saturday cancelled a dinner he was to host for BJP top leaders, who are in Patna to attend a two-day meeting of the party’s national executive. He also threatened legal action against the agency that released the advertisement in vernacular dailies.
The advertisement, published in the name of dozens of people of Bihar who are now settled in Gujarat, projected Modi as a close friend of Nitish Kumar and highlighted the Gujarat government’s generous help after the 2008 Kosi floods in Bihar.
Janata Dal-United (JD-U) president Sharad Yadav said the row over an advertisement showing Nitish Kumar with Gujarat Chief
Minister Narendra Modi “was over” and that his party had “old ties” with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“The BJP says that the advertisement was given by an ad agency. There is no reason to disbelieve this,” Yadav said
The JD-U chief said in New Delhi that the episode relating to the advertisement “took place yesterday” and “it was over”.
“Both the parties have old ties,” he stressed.
As the strategy for the upcoming Bihar assembly elections along with the situation in Jharkhand were discussed during the two-day Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) national executive committee meet.The JD-U is in power in Bihar in alliance with the BJP. Both the parties are preparing for assembly polls due in the state later this year.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) central government of conducting “systematic manoeuvres to destabilize and derail” non-Congress or non-UPA state governments and especially targeting popular BJP chief ministers like Narendra Modi of Gujarat.
“Unnerved by the success of BJP and NDA (National Democratic Alliance) governments in implementing pro-poor economic programmes, their proven ability to set new benchmarks in inclusive development and establish transparent systems of governance, the central government has launched a vicious and vindictive campaign against our state governments,” the BJP’s resolution on the “Centre’s assault on the federal structure of the Indian union” adopted at the two-day party national executive here said.
The BJP said the centre was also “misusing its captive agencies to mount political offensive” against democratically elected non-Congress state governments.
BJP national spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy at a press meet said Gujarat is not the only state that has come in for such “politically motivated actions that violate the constitution federal framework. Each and every NDA ruled state has suffered grievously at the centre’s hands”.
“All other BJP ruled states have faced brazen discrimination by the Centre on one issue or the other,” Rudy said.
The BJP said that in the matter of providing relief to states affected by natural calamities, “the centre’s heart seems to bleed only for Congress ruled states”. It said Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has repeatedly complained that central relief for Kosi flood victims was not only paltry but also delayed.
“The systematic harassment of non-Congress state governments reflects the Congress party’s anti-federal mindset,” the party said.
The BJP warned the UPA government to desist from these “subversive and underhand activities against elected non-Congress governments”.
Also Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad dared Nitish Kumar to break off with the BJP and come clean if he wanted to hold on to his secular credentials.
Besides the RJD, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders have also targeted the chief minister saying that the controversy has “exposed his true face”.
—Agencies