Patna: Less than five hours after having breakfast with chief minister Nitish Kumar, BJP national president Amit Shah on Thursday dismissed speculations about any rift between his party and Nitish's Janata Dal United.
For the past few days, divergent statements had been emanating from the JDU and the BJP camps on the issue of seat sharing for the 2019 election, which had fuelled speculation that the two parties may part ways if an amicable formula would not be found. Senior party leaders from both sides, however, have been trying to play down the issue, claiming that no talks on seat sharing had taken place.
"Some people are waiting for a rift in the alliance," Shah said while addressing in-charges of his party Shakti Kendras (hub for coordination). "They are salivating at such a prospect. Nothing like this will happen. Nitishji is with us and the NDA will win all the 40 (Lok Sabha) seats of Bihar.
"We know how to keep friends and also give them their due place," Shah said. "Under the leadership of Narendra Modi we are moving in that direction only."
The NDA had won 31 seats in Bihar in 2014, when the JDU was not part of the BJP-led alliance.
Shah chaired a series of meetings with different wings of his party, BJP leaders and workers. The first meeting was with the volunteers of the media cell. After that, Shah had an interactive session with Vistaraks who work in Assembly segments for organisational expansion. Then, he inaugurated a library at the BJP office.
While instilling confidence among party workers by speaking about the series of victories in different states, Shah mentioned that in Bihar victory eluded the party in the 2015 assembly elections but added that Nitish came back to the NDA because he could not remain with the corrupt.
Shah said that if N. Chandrababu Naidu walked out of the NDA after 2014, Nitish came back to it. The BJP chief maintained that all the funds coming to the state for the welfare of the people were reaching the target group because the government was being run by Nitish and Sushil Modi.
