BJP, JD(U) make patch-up efforts

BJP may have taken an affront to reports that chief minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar does not want his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi and Varun Gandhi to campaign in the Bihar assembly elections, but the parties are said to be engaged in an exercise of reconciliation. Efforts were reportedly on to find an honourable way out of the impasse as none of the parties is in a position to face the polls alone.

Senior Bihar BJP leaders were confabulating with party president Nitish Gadkari in New Delhi, even as behind-the-scene efforts by deputy chief minister Sushil Modi, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Bihar BJP chief CP Thakur and Shahnawaz Hussain to end the impasse were under way.

The leaders held closed-door meetings with LK Advani and Gadkari, after which the latter decided to have a broad-based meeting with Bihar leaders late on Tuesday night for a final decision.

In a significant development that pointed to a possible thaw in relations, four ministers belonging to BJP attended a cabinet meeting convened by Nitish in Patna.

The move, which came hours before Gadkari’s meeting with the Bihar core group, could have an important bearing on the future of the relationship between the two parties, BJP insiders said.

The core group meeting was held amidst a feeling in a section of BJP that the party should not be seen as playing second fiddle to JD(U) in the face of reports of Nitish not wanting certain BJP leaders to campaign in Bihar. “This is unacceptable as it can set a bad precedent,” a senior BJP leader said.     

He, however, denied receiving any such demand from Nitish. “We have not formally received any such demand. We are only reacting to media reports,” he said.     

“When the election campaign starts, BJP will make a list of leaders who will campaign. We cannot accept outside interference in this context,” party spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said.