Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi with other BJP leaders at a meeting in Patna on Thursday. (PTI)

New Delhi/Patna, June 13: As last-gasp efforts to save the Bihar alliance continued in the national capital, BJP leaders in Patna sent out signals that they were reconciled to Nitish Kumar breaking out.

In Delhi, the BJP concertedly reached out to Nitish and JD(U) president Sharad Yadav urging them to not split the 17-year-old alliance. But sources in Delhi and Patna admitted there was “no positive signal” from the chief minister, though Sharad maintained “talks were on”. A senior BJP leader said Bengal chief minister had offered to make Nitish the prime ministerial candidate of the proposed federal front.

In spite of several calls from the BJP top brass, including one from Murli Manohar Joshi this morning, Nitish was non-committal on the NDA’s future. “We will hold a discussion on what they said. Right now, it is not possible to say anything,” Nitish told reporters while embarking on his Seva Yatra to Katihar district on Thursday.

BJP president Rajnath Singh spoke to JD(U) leaders and asked his party colleagues, Nitin Gadkari and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, to call on Sharad at his residence in Delhi. “The alliance is there. We are trying to mend the ties,” Sharad said.

Sources close to Sharad said the JD(U) president had urged the BJP to give two assurances if it was keen to save the alliance. One, that Narendra Modi would not be made the prime ministerial candidate and second, that he would not campaign in Bihar.

A source privy to the goings-on said: “The outcome will be known in a day or two. But the signals are not positive.” Asked if any of them gave an assurance to not declare Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate for 2014 without taking the NDA on board, a source said: “There was no talk of this, we ensured the subject wasn’t brought up.”

On Wednesday, when L.K. Advani called Nitish, the word from a source close to him was that the BJP patriarch had “assured” him that Modi would not be announced as a prospective Prime Minister without his consent. BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman denied this version and maintained, “No leader has given any such assurance.”

Asked what transpired in the conversations he had, Rajnath’s anodyne answer was: “It is an old alliance and it must continue.”

But Bihar BJP leaders are gearing up for a parting of ways. Sources said senior BJP ministers, including deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, have stopped seeing files.

A close aide of the deputy chief minister said Sushil Modi — who holds the finance, commercial tax and forest and environment portfolios — has stopped going to office since Tuesday. “He did sign a few files from home today. But he has asked government officials not to take any more files to him,” the aide said.

BJP’s PHED minister Chandra Mohan Rai, too, gave a similar directive on Thursday. He has not attended office in the last two days.

“The BJP high command has not asked ministers to stop work. The decisions are personal,” a BJP leader said. But at a meeting on Thursday, BJP ministers and leaders resolved to treat the JD(U) as an “enemy” after June 23, when Rajnath addresses a workers’ meet in Patna. “If the alliance snaps by then, we will direct our workers to campaign against the JD(U) right down to the panchayat level and tell the people how the JD(U) betrayed Bihar’s mandate to the NDA,” a senior leader said.

Away from Patna, Nitish continued to be more forthcoming on the federal front. Bihar, Bengal and Odisha have common problems, he said, and it makes sense to raise these issues together. While Bihar suffers from lack of development, Bengal was reeling from debt, he said. “Naveenbabu held a Swabhiman Rally in Delhi to demand special status. I’ve congratulated him. I’ve myself asked for a change in parameters when according special status. We should raise common issues jointly. We should even form a joint economic block of eastern India states,” Nitish said.

He, however, conceded that it would be some time before the front takes shape. “Right now, talks are in a very primary stage.” He clarified that Mamata Banerjee had not asked him to lead the front.

JD(U) sources said Nitish was cold to the BJP as he knows that its top brass was incapable of stopping Narendra Modi from becoming the party’s prime ministerial candidate. The party’s national spokesperson, Shivanand Tiwari, went on record to say it was no longer possible for his party to continue with the BJP.