JD(U) national president Sharad Yadav and BJP leader Arun Jaitley address news meets in New Delhi on Thursday. Pictures by Prem Singh

Patna, June 21: The JD(U) today decided to support Pranab Mukherjee as the presidential candidate against the BJP’s Purno A. Sangma after its ally failed to “convince” chief minister Nitish Kumar about the “political logic” behind supporting someone who till the “other day was with the UPA”.

Sources said though the JD(U) leadership kept talking about “efforts of consensus” within the NDA for public posturing, the party was locked in “hard argument” with the BJP brass till the last minute.

The sources said the Bihar chief minister wanted the BJP to “convince” him why the NDA should support Sangma, who till yesterday was part of the Congress-led UPA and was, at best, a “borrowed” candidate. Moreover, the JD(U) negotiators argued that Mukherjee, the official UPA nominee, was by all accounts an able and deserving candidate and was set to win the polls.

Sources close to Nitish revealed that the chief minister, who put the BJP on notice by asserting that the NDA should have a “secular” prime ministerial candidate as a follow-up to his brinkmanship with Gujarat counterpart, Narendra Modi, was in no mood mix the two issues — his differences with the BJP on secularism and the presidential poll.

The BJP failed to come out with its own candidate even after the UPA declared Mukherjee as its nominee. The JD(U), revealed the sources, also argued that had the NDA come up with the candidate from its own rank, it (the JD-U) would have considered supporting him.

“Nitish personally had not dropped the name of any candidate till Monday because he wanted to allow the BJP the time and the space to be ready for consensus in the absence of a meaningful candidate from the NDA’s rank,” a senior NDA leader said. “The JD(U), till the last minute, tried to stop the BJP from fighting on the presidential issue.

“The President is the highest constitutional authority in India and as such he should not be subjected to political differences. We should have a presidential candidate on the basis of consensus. And Pranabda, despite belonging to the Congress, was the most deserving candidate,” Nitish was believed to have argued hard with top BJP leaders — personally or through interlocutors — till yesterday.

The JD(U) has 3.9 per cent of the total votes in the electoral college and a vote value of 42,153.

Refusing to share what “transpired” in the prolonged negotiations between the allies, JD(U) national general secretary Shivanand Tiwary told The Telegraph: “It would have been better had all the NDA constituents helped Pranab Mukherjee get elected by consensus. But unfortunately, it has not happened. As announced by our national president, Sharad Yadav, we have decided to support Pranab Mukherjee”.

Though Tiwary ruled out the possibility of bitterness growing between the two allies in the wake of their separate preferences for the presidential nominee, sources revealed that the developments have widened the cracks in the 16-year-old alliance.

By supporting Mukherjee, Nitish has asserted himself against the “big brother” — the BJP — in a big way on the national stage. The JD(U)’s decision is also believed to be another manifestation of the BJP and JD(U) falling apart in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The JD(U)’s support to Mukherjee is also said to be a “big indicator” of the party pursuing secular agenda in a more vigorous way in its war to deter the BJP from declaring Narendra Modi — Nitish’s undeclared rival for the national prize — as the prime ministerial candidate.

What appeared to have tilted the JD(U)’s balance in Pranab’s favour more were the personal gesture of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pranab calling Nitish and soliciting his support. The local factors too would have played a key role in driving Nitish to favour Pranab. Sangma, a tribal leader from Manipur, was hardly an “attraction” for Nitish.

“The Bengali population far outnumbers the Manipur tribals in Bihar. Nitish must have counted on this factor. Bengalis have a respectable presence in Purnea, Katihar, Kishanganj and even Patna,” said a senior JD(U) leader, adding that the decision to support Pranab would help Nitish in his efforts to extract special category status for Bihar.

Though, Nitish has steadfastly refused to link the special category status with the presidential poll.