(Top) CP Thakur and Sushil Kumar Modi

Patna, Sept. 14: Senior BJP leader C.P. Thakur today defended Nitish Kumar in the medicine scam a day after his party colleague Sushil Kumar Modi shot off a list of 13 questions to the latter, stoking the rumour of factionalism in the outfit afresh.

Thakur, the BJP’s former national vice-president, declared that it was wrong to make charges against former chief minister Nitish without evidence. The senior leader’s defence for Nitish when Modi has gone overboard on the medical scam virtually gave credence to the speculation over the state BJP being a divided house barely a year before the Assembly polls.

“The entire party appears to be split along pro- and anti-Sushil Kumar Modi lines. It no longer looks the same party which swept the Lok Sabha polls and did not do as badly as projected in the bypolls despite the grand alliance of the JDU, RJD and the Congress,” said a senior BJP leader, visibly worried over frequent war of words in public between the BJP leaders.

While BJP president Amit Shah recently warned the Jharkhand leaders against factionalism ahead of the Assembly polls, infighting appears to be plaguing the party in the state. Thakur’s act of defending Nitish in the medicine scam once again hinted at bickering within the party and some leaders’ dislike for Modi.

The JDU leaders, facing the heat of the medicine purchase scam, were visibly relaxed after Thakur’s statement. “We do not have much to say. The BJP leaders are themselves exposing Modi,” said JDU MLC Sanjay Singh.

Batting in favour of Nitish, Thakur said: “Only an impartial probe either by a state or a central agency can end the controversy over the alleged medicine scam. The appropriate person to recommend a CBI probe is the chief minister, not Modi. We have been with Nitish for long. I do not feel that he is capable of doing a scam,” he told The Telegraph.

BJP MP and former health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey, however, stood by Modi after Thakur’s statement and demanded a CBI probe. “I challenge the state government to hold an open debate on the issue at Gandhi Maidan,” he said.

Modi recently wrote a letter to the Centre demanding a CBI probe into the drug scam.

For almost two decades, Modi has been the poster boy of Bihar BJP. He became the Leader of the Opposition, the state president of the party, an MP from Bhagalpur and the deputy chief minister when the BJP-JDU alliance came to power in 2005. But in this process, he rubbed several senior leaders the wrong way.

“Former minister Chandramohan Rai believes Modi was responsible for his ouster from the NDA-I ministry. Thakur believes Modi was responsible for denying him an extension as the party’s state president. Rameshwar Chaurasia blames Modi for sidelining him. Prem Kumar accuses Modi for not allowing him to grow,” said a senior leader.

There was a series of public statements from the BJP leaders after Union agriculture minister Radhamohan Singh recently declared that the party would fight the next Assembly elections under Modi. Anti-Modi leaders insisted that the battle would be fought under collective leadership.