Sushil Modi has said there is no question of changing the ‘captain’ of NDA in Bihar.
NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar is divided into two camps over the issue of whether to continue supporting Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister of the state or to fight the 2020 Assembly elections with the idea of installing a CM from the BJP.
While tension between the BJP and Janata Dal United (JDU) has been simmering under the surface for quite some time now, it has now come out in the open with a very vocal group of senior BJP leaders and functionaries demanding that Nitish Kumar should now take up “Central responsibility”, thereby effectively telling him to vacate the chair.
However, another section within the Bihar BJP led by Deputy Chief Minister and arguably the state’s tallest leader, Sushil Modi, has made it clear that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will continue and next year’s Assembly elections will be fought under the leadership of Nitish Kumar.
While taking to Twitter, Sushil Modi said that there was no question of changing the “captain” of the NDA in Bihar (i.e. Nitish Kumar) and he would remain the “captain in 2020”. However, this social messaging by Sushil Modi, rather than silencing the BJP leaders, who want the removal of Nitish Kumar, enraged them further. These leaders, including C.P. Thakur, reacting to Modi’s tweet, said who would be the next CM candidate would be decided by the party leadership and it was not a prerogative of Sushil Modi.
Sushil Modi is seen as the face of Bihar BJP for the decade-long efforts that he had put in during his “crusade” during Lalu-raj when no other BJP leader was seen on the streets of Patna.
Those who have demanded the “promotion” of Nitish Kumar and his entry into national politics include Union minister Giriraj Singh, former Union minister and influential Bhumihar Brahmin voice C.P. Thakur, former Union minister, prominent Dalit voice and party MLC Sanjay Paswan and state vice president Mithilesh Tiwari. Apart from them, several young party leaders and functionaries, too, have called for having a BJP Chief Minister through opinion pieces published in the media and tweets tagging the top party leadership.
Though it has almost been more than one week since these state leaders—who were called “motor-mouth” by JDU general secretary K.C. Tyagi for their comments on Nitish Kumar—have publicly placed their demands, that too repeatedly and in multiple forums, the BJP central leadership has not expressed its displeasure over their statements, as was demanded by JDU leaders, leading to strong speculation among the rank and file of BJP that even the BJP central leadership has now made up its mind to go alone in the next Assembly elections. JDU leaders, at least officially, however, are not losing any sleep over these statements made by different BJP leaders.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, JDU leader and spokesperson Nikhil Mandal said that there was no ambiguity over who would be the CM face of the NDA in the 2020 elections. “During the July Assembly session, Sushil Modi had said that it would be Nitish Kumar. Then, Sushil Modi again tweeted recently that it would be Nitish Kumar. When the biggest leader of Bihar BJP is repeatedly saying that Nitish Kumar would be the CM face, where is the doubt? Even our other ally, Ram Vilas Paswan, has also said that the elections would be fought under Nitish Kumar. As for the BJP leaders who have taken a different line, we can only say that it is their personal opinion. The official BJP stand is that the elections will be contested under Nitish Kumar,” Mandal said.