Patna, Feb. 6: The Janata Dal (United) has advised the BJP high command not to project anyone as the prime ministerial candidate ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, a departure from chief minister Nitish Kumar’s earlier stand that the NDA should name its nominee before the polls.
The suggestion, put forward by senior JD(U) leader Hari Kishore Singh to BJP patriarch L.K. Advani, is being described in the NDA as part of “behind-the-scenes” efforts of Nitish and his “friends” in the BJP to stall Narendra Modi’s projection as the candidate for the top political post in the country and save the JD(U)-BJP alliance, at least for the time being.
“I met L.K. Advani and apprised him of our party’s stand. I told him that projecting someone as the prime ministerial candidate was neither in the interest of the NDA nor the nation as a whole in the given situation,” Singh, a former minister of state for external affairs, told reporters.
Top sources in the JD(U) revealed that Nitish, in “consultation” with party president Sharad Yadav and his “allies” in the BJP, had sent Singh — his party’s Oxford-educated old warhorse and deputy chairman of the state planning board — as an “emissary” to Advani yesterday to communicate his new stand.
Asked how Advani reacted to his suggestion, Singh said: “We had more than an hour’s meeting. Advaniji gave me a patient and positive hearing.”
In a newspaper interview in June last year, Nitish was quoted as saying that the NDA should declare its prime ministerial candidate “well before the elections” and that the person should have “secular” credentials.
Though Nitish did not name Modi, it was clear that he was against his Gujarat counterpart being projected as the NDA’s face.
The chorus within the BJP to name Modi has been getting louder of late, putting the alliance in Bihar on the edge. The JD(U)’s changed strategy could come as a breather to Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, considered close to Nitish, and several other senior BJP leaders at the national level who were fearing that Nitish’s insistence that the BJP name its candidate ahead of the polls would eventually lead to the break-up of the nearly 17-year-old Bihar alliance.
“Projecting someone as the prime ministerial candidate will amount to losing the advantage of NDA unity and providing the UPA with the opportunity to exploit the divisions within the NDA,” JD(U)’s Singh said.
“Projecting someone (read Narendra Modi) would allow the munna (read Rahul Gandhi) to reach South Block (where the PM’s office is located). It is time to accumulate and reap the benefits of a united NDA rather than doing something that divides the NDA,” he added.
Concomitant to Hari Kishore Singh meeting Advani, BJP chief Rajnath Singh issued a “gag order” on his party leaders to stop them from speaking on the prime ministerial candidature.
The impact of the gag order was also felt with senior party leaders keeping mum on the subject. After Singh met Advani, Sharad Yadav, the NDA convener, said: “The JD(U) will not insist on projecting someone as the PM candidate.” BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar too expressed similar sentiments.
