Sushil Modi will continue as Bihar’s deputy chief minister and also as leader of the BJP’s dissidence-wracked legislature party
NEW DELHI: Sushil Modi will continue as Bihar’s deputy chief minister and also as leader of the BJP’s dissidence-wracked legislature party after an unprecedented “secret ballot” showed he enjoyed majority support of the party’s MLAs and MLCs in the state.
“It has been decided there shall be no change in the leadership and Sushil Kumar Modi, deputy chief minister, will continue as leader of the legislature party,” BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said shortly after Modi won the “head count” of legislators.
The BJP leadership had decided to go for a “secret ballot” to assess the view of legislators as a way out to address the demand by some of them that Modi should be removed from the two posts.
The trouble in the BJP’s Bihar unit erupted after last month’s cabinet reshuffle in which some of the party ministers were dropped. The BJP and JD(U) share power in Bihar.
Senior party leaders Venkaiah Naidu and Sushma Swaraj, the observers for the meeting, consulted the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate LK Advani and president Rajnath Singh before announcing the decision of Modi continuing in his two posts.
Party sources said Modi got the support of 35 legislators out of the total of 67 who gave their preferences. Two legislators were absent.
After his victory, Modi said the outcome was a “verdict” against forces inimical to the BJP-led NDA grouping.
Earlier, coming out of a meeting at the party headquarters here, Modi said the opinion of the legislators would be final and the party had employed democratic means to arrive at a decision.
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