Patna, Nov. 21: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today backed out from the support that he had, apparently, extended to his Uttar Pradesh counterpart, Mayawati, on her cabinet’s nod to the bifurcation of the country’s biggest state into four parts.

“I had not favoured creation of smaller states in the context of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Rather, I had spoken in the context of our party’s principle that favours creation of smaller states,” he told reporters on the sidelines of his weekly janata darbar here.

At the same time, Nitish clarified that no new state should have less than 100 MLAs. “It is not appropriate to create states comprising a few panchayats or administrative districts. The new states should be created keeping in view the exigencies of the demography and population of the regions concerned,” he said.

The chief minister said there should be a fresh re-organization of the states, virtually indicating that he had nothing to do with the demands of Vidarbha (Maharastra) and Telangana (Andhra Pradesh) that he had specifically mentioned while reacting to the UP cabinet’s November 16 nod to the bifurcation of India’s most populous state.

What seems to have sent Nitish on the back foot on his support to Mayawati’s move is in all probability the realisation that it was the consideration of the political gains in poll-bound UP that might have prompted Mayawati to rake up the issue rather than the real exigencies involved in going for such an exercise. Moreover, the BJP, which is in the vanguard of the NDA at the Centre and an alliance of the Nitish-led government in the state, did not like the way Mayawati had gone ahead with her cabinet decision to approve the bifurcation of the state. The BJP has high stakes in Uttar Pradesh and, as such, it would have expected JD(U), its strongest ally in Bihar, to move in unison against the Mayawati dispensation.

In fact, in his “corrected” version today, Nitish said exactly what BJP president Nitin Gadkari had said three days ago. “Our party in principle supports the creation of smaller states. But we do not raise such issues for electoral gains,” Gadkari had said.

Sources in the NDA conjectured that the chief minister’s support to Mayawati’s “ill-timed” move might not have sounded pleasant to the ears of either Telgu Desham Party (TDP) leader Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh, where the demand of Telangana is a big issue, or other “probable” allies in different states whose support Nitish or NDA might need in future.

Observers feel Nitish’s move to support Mayawati was hardly beneficial for him in the context of Bihar, too. “What will Nitish gain out of supporting the bifurcation of Uttar Pradesh. Strengthening Mayawati amounts to loosing control over the Mahadalit vote bank that Nitish had nurtured painstakingly,” a senior JD(U) leader said.