New Delhi, June 3: The BJP parliamentary board today failed to take a decision on the fate of Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi despite overwhelming opinion favouring his exit.

The confused leadership decided to take a day more to make up its mind. General secretary Arun Jaitley said party chief Rajnath Singh would meet some senior leaders from Bihar tomorrow before announcing the decision.

This is the second time the board has discussed Bihar. It is difficult to recall many instances when the party’s top leadership has taken so much time to take a call on an organisational matter. The Bihar rebels, camping in Delhi, found the delay in taking a decision amusing.

One of them said: “We have expressed our views before these leaders several times and made it clear that there was no room for compromise. We don’t know what the party president wants to know at this juncture?”

The rebels said in private that resignations of at least 30 MLAs would follow if the central leadership decided to retain Modi. In fact, it is this rigid stance that has tied the central leaders’ hands. Sources said most leaders on the panel — Rajnath, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj and Jaswant Singh — agreed with the report submitted by Kalraj Mishra, the leader in charge of Bihar affairs, that the situation couldn’t be redeemed without removing Modi.

But Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu, conceding the situation was grim, argued that there was no suitable replacement. They also expressed concern that Modi’s removal would encourage dissidents in Rajasthan.

However, other leaders felt the indecision on the Bihar deputy chief minister wouldn’t do the party any good. They felt that the Rajasthan dissidents needed no encouragement and each case had to be resolved separately.

Another argument in favour of retaining Modi was the need to take the opinion of chief minister Nitish Kumar. Some pointed out that portfolio distribution was the sole prerogative of the chief minister and any decision that annoyed Nitish would create political complications in the state.

L.K. Advani, too, sources said, had suggested a cautious approach, arguing that the decision should be taken keeping in mind the implications for the party’s prospects in the coming Lok Sabha election.

The divergent views prompted Rajnath, reluctant to take a tough decision, to play for time. When he was asked to hold a final round of discussions with the Bihar rebels, he promptly offered to consult Advani and Jaswant.

The dissidents were unhappy with Advani and Rajnath. They felt that Advani was not making an objective assessment of the situation because of the Lok Sabha elections.

Rajnath, they said, was showing the weak leadership syndrome. But they hoped the party would take a decision tomorrow.