New Delhi, June 16: The BJP president, Rajnath Singh, today weighed his words prudently while reacting to the split with the JD(U) but allowed free rein to the party’s second- and third-rung leaders to blast the lost ally.

His calculated move was apparently aimed at conveying a message to the JD(U) that his party was adequately pragmatic to know that attaining even a simple majority in 2014 was a pipe-dream, with or without Narendra Modi. But at the same time, he could not have directed his cadre to hold their punches because “this was the moment of liberation they were waiting for”, an office-bearer claimed.

The only expression of unqualified regret came from the Lok Sabha Opposition leader, Sushma Swaraj, whose tweet called the break-up as “sad and unfortunate”.

It seems patriarch L.K. Advani — who believed the JD(U)’s continuance in the NDA could help him regain his former clout against Modi — called Rajnath and plainly said this was a “major fallout” of Modi’s elevation.

There was no confirmation of the call from Rajnath’s secretariat. However, a source close to Advani said: “His views are well known. He consistently believed it was politically expedient for the BJP to plus the NDA coalition instead of depleting it. Obviously, the party thought otherwise.”

Advani’s lack of endorsers was evident from the response of the Lok Sabha deputy leader Gopinath Munde, of Maharashtra. With Advani and Sushma till the other day, Munde rebuked Nitish for “opposing” the ascendancy of a backward caste leader like Modi while himself being an OBC person.

Modi himself was silent throughout the day. But the BJP’s media cell got down to corner Nitish without ado this evening apparently with tacit support from Modi’s aides. It released a copy of a speech made by the Bihar chief minister on December 13, 2003 in Kutch where he flagged off a rail project as the central railway minister. Modi’s office, sources said, leaked it.

It quoted Nitish as saying in Hindi: “I am confident that Narendrabhai will not confine himself to just Gujarat but serve the country as well.” It later quoted him as saying, “And the Modi-led Gujarat government, I wish to thank and felicitate it. It has achieved a lot but outside of Gujarat Narendrabhai is being projected differently. But I can’t say if the state has suffered on account of this. But the endeavour to vilify Gujarat is a separate issue. This much I wish to say that this government has not propagated its achievements to the extent it should… Everyone should see the work. The country should see the work.”

Of course, Nitish did not condone the 2002 communal violence. He said: “Whatever happened was a blot. But if we just remain obsessed with that and forget the rest, that’s not good. A lot has happened in infrastructure and development for which I wish to congratulate the Gujarat government.”

Rajya Sabha MP Piyush Goel — counted among the articulate young faces of the BJP — rejected the suggestion that the BJP was in an extreme-risk zone by putting all its eggs in Modi’s basket. “He is embedded in the common person’s DNA. The country’s connectivity paradigms have changed. Don’t look at the old past of arithmetic. The new paradigm is reflected in the social media, in urbanisation and in the emergence of a defined class that is too willing to participate in the dance of democracy.”

The official line, enunciated by Rajnath in a convention of the BJP’s youth wing this evening, was that the non-Congress spectrum should have collectively pledged to wipe out the Congress. “But sadly our alliance with the Dal (United) has broken,” he said.

Sources said while the grassroots cadres were celebrating Modi’s clinching control over the BJP, those at the top “perhaps realised” that the gambit might not bring them “that close” to the striking distance of power. Data from the Election Commission’s website showed that the highest voting percentage the BJP ever managed in a Lok Sabha poll was 25.5 per cent in 1999 when it won 57 of undivided Uttar Pradesh’s 85 seats. It bagged 182 seats but with 141, the Congress was still a bit ahead with a 25.82 per cent vote.

Since then, the BJP went steadily downhill, netting 23.75 in 1999 (after the Kargil incursions) but retaining its 182 seats, 22.16 in 2004 and dipping to an all-time low of 18.8 in 2009, nearly 10 per cent behind the Congress.

A source claimed Modi would make up the shortfall by getting the votes of urban and semi-urban India, regardless of caste divisions.

Notwithstanding the hyperbole, sources explained that had the BJP clung to the JD(U) and allowed Nitish to run down Modi, its only USP would have got dented. “Realistically, we hope to touch 180-185 under Modi’s stewardship. If we are stuck at 120 or 124, even our old friends will say, thank you.”