Patna, May 27: The widening rift between the JD(U) and the BJP over the rivalry between Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi as well as infighting within the latter are believed to be the prime reasons behind the delay in filling up the 12 Bihar Legislative Council seats vacant from May 8.

The 12 MLCs who completed their tenure on May 8 belonged to the nomination quota. The state cabinet authorised the chief minister, Nitish Kumar, soon after the seats fell vacant to take the decision on the issue.

Nitish does not appear to be in a hurry to fill these seats. According to their numerical strength and understanding, the seats are to be shared in the ratio of 7:5 between the JD(U) and the BJP.

“The chief minister has not discussed the issue in the party so far,” said a senior JD(U) leader. “We cannot speak on it unless it is discussed in the party,” he added. If sources are to be believed, Nitish might keep the nomination against the vacant seats in abeyance for quite a long time. The two alliance partners fought war of nerves till the last minute on the six Rajya Sabha seats in March this year. There was heartburn in a section of the BJP with the JD(U) pocketing four upper House seats against the BJP’s two.

Some BJP leaders openly accused deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi for his “meek acquiescence” to the JD(U). The bitterness between the two partners, apparently, has grown more of late.

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a student wing of the RSS, has been organising demonstrations against the Nitish government on the issue of water, electricity and alleged appeasement of minorities repeatedly. State health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey virtually aggravated the bitterness between the two parties by projecting Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the future leader of India at a Bihar Divas function at Surat earlier this month.

Choubey’s utterances apparently added fuel to the fire.

Though the deputy chief minister, a strong protagonist of the alliance, tried to distance the party from Choubey’s projection, the ABVP has been attacking Nitish at every available opportunity.

The outfit shouted slogans at chief minister’s janata darbar at Buxar on May 25. The JD(U)’s Buxar unit has alleged that the attack on the chief minister’s convoy at Narbatpur village near Chousa on May 24, too, was engineered by the ABVP. Besides the bitterness between the NDA alliance partners, bickering within the BJP factions is believed to be another reason behind the delay in filling the seats.

For instance, Sanjay Jha, a BJP leader who is believed to be close to Nitish and works as a channel between the chief minister and the BJP high command, is among the one who completed their Legislative Council tenure on May 8.

Now, Jha has apprised the BJP’s state leadership of his unwillingness to be re-nominated on the BJP quota in the council. Jha, primarily an Arun Jaitely supporter, is uncertain about his future in the party and that of the alliance with Narendra Modi gaining supremacy within the BJP.