M A I N   N E W S

BJP yields to Nitish Kumar
Won’t send Modi to Bihar
Faraz Ahmad
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 23
The 10-day old war of attrition between BJP and its Bihar ally chief minister Nitish Kumar has ended with the BJP informally deciding not to create any more trouble for itself by sending in Narendra Modi to Bihar yet again.

A delegation of 20 BJP leaders from Bihar deliberated with their party president Nitin Gadkari till the early hours of today in the presence of senior national leaders like M Venkaiah Naidu, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Shahnawaz Husain where the prevailing mood was in favour of saving the alliance particularly when the NDA victory in the state assembly elections appeared so close and real.

Later Venkaiah Naidu said during a party function at the BJP headquarters 11, Ashoka Road this morning, “The party is keen that the alliance between the two parties should continue in their mutual interest.”

He said, "BJP and JD-U are keen to run a good government and serve the people. That unfortunate incident (involving the advertisement showing Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi holding hands and the reaction of Kumar) was avoidable."

Formally Naidu dismissed the JD-U demand of not sending in the Gujarat chief minister to Bihar any more saying, “All reports of conditions being put by JD-U for continuing with the alliance were media speculation and were being unnecessarily played up.”

Echoing similar sentiments, Shahnawaz Husain too said, "We want to continue with the coalition for the development of Bihar but will not compromise on self-respect,"

Thus on record BJP leaders have maintained that they were not going to succumb to any preconditions from Nitish Kumar. But privately sources said there was a general agreement in last night’s meeting that Modi’s act of publicising himself in Patna newspapers was avoidable and lest he repeat a similar act once again, it is best that he be kept out of Bihar till state elections are over.

Another BJP leader Prakash Javadekar gave a little hint of the party desisting from sending in Narendra Modi to Bihar.