New Delhi, April 18: The BJP today directed its Bihar leaders to strengthen the party and prepare for the eventuality of a break-up with the JD(U) but asked them to maintain restraint so that it was not blamed for precipitating the crisis.
The party president, Rajnath Singh, however, made it clear that the state unit should not be seen on the backfoot in the face of any attack from the JD(U) leaders, aimed particularly at Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. The party chief, sources said, asked the leaders not to take the attack lying down but cautioned that it should be “structured and restrained”.
Rajnath met the Bihar leaders individually and then collectively to take stock of the political situation in the state after chief minister Nitish Kumar’s ripping attack on Modi and said the party should not be taken by surprise, like in Odisha before the last Assembly polls in 2009, if the JD(U) finally pulls out of the NDA.
The pre-scheduled meeting, part of the newly elected party president Rajnath’s effort to interact with all the state units, assumed significance in view of the recent developments that has endangered the 17-year-old JD(U)-BJP alliance. He told the leaders to remain prepared for the eventuality of going alone in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, as the state unit authorised the central party to take a call over the fate of the alliance with the JD(U) in the state.
“The BJP has continued with the alliance in the interest of the 10 crore people of Bihar. There will be no effort from our part to weaken the coalition,” BJP spokesman Shahnawaz Hussain, a member of the party’s core Bihar team, said after the meeting.
Indicating that the party had started to prepare for divorce with the JD(U), he said: “The party president asked the Bihar leaders to strengthen and expand the party till the booth-level.”
More than the strains in the alliance with the JD(U), the simmering differences among leaders in the state unit consumed a major chunk of the two-hour-long meeting time.
Taking a serious note of the internal clashes in the state party, Rajnath met the leaders individually to hear out their grievances and then got them together to stress the need for remaining united in this hour of crisis. He said the party should “dissolve differences” and go all out to strengthen the party till the booth-level.
Rajnath was learnt to have given a terse warning to the state leaders engaged in browbeating their colleagues and said it would not be tolerated. “The party will not sink if one or two leaders go out,” a source quoted Rajnath as saying.
