BJP places gag order on Bihar CM nominee

Party fears internal bickering may affect poll prospects

Rattled by internal bickerings over projection of a chief ministerial candidate for the Bihar Assembly elections in 2015, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has asked all its senior leaders to desist from discussing the issue publicly.

The move comes two days after Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said that “the BJP will contest the 2015 Assembly elections in Bihar under the stewardship of Sushil Kumar Modi, who is the most able and acceptable leader in the state.” Singh’s statement ruffled many a feather within the party.

Former Union health minister Dr CP Thakur was quick to rebut Singh’s claim on Modi’s ‘coronation’. “These days anybody, who is somebody in the party, speaks out of turn. Such decisions (on CM nominee) are not taken on roads,” said Thakur, taking a dig at the Union minister.

Former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi was quick to quell the increasing rebellion. “I have suggested that till the BJP Parliamentary Board takes a final call on the chief ministerial nominee, all the leaders concerned should avoid making claims and counter-claims,” Modi said here on Tuesday.  

Modi, who spearheaded the bypoll campaign last month, has been drawing maximum flak for the BJP’s poor show. Had the party performed well, he would have staked a legitimate claim to be declared the chief ministerial nominee one year well in advance for the Assembly polls which is likely to be held in October 2015. But with poor performance in the by-elections, senior leaders within the saffron camp are baying for his blood.

“Instead of one person, the Assembly polls should be contested under the joint leadership,” suggested Prem Kumar, who was Modi’s Cabinet colleague in the Nitish regime, and is also in the race for the state’s top post. The JD(U) could not hide its glee over the internal bickerings within the BJP. “Sushil Modi has raked up the issue of ‘medicine scam’ not to target JD(U) government.

He is actually targeting his party leader Ashwini Choubey (now BJP MP), who was earlier health minister in Nitish’s Cabinet. Similarly, Modi is raking up the issue of bridge which collapsed in rains.

“Actually, he is targeting another BJP chief ministerial aspirant Nand Kishore Yadav, who, till June last year, was Bihar’s Road Construction Minister. Modi is actually hitting many birds with one stone,” said one of the closest aides of Nitish and Bihar’s Water Resources Minister Vijay Choudhary.