New Delhi/Patna: Frantic efforts continued yesterday to prevent a rupture in the National Democratic Alliance as BJP leaders met leaders of the JD-U, the alliance’s second-largest component, to clear the latter’s misgivings over Narendra Modi leading the 2014 Lok Sabha poll campaign.
With some Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leaders expressing their reservations about Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) asked them to follow the “coalition dharma” and not make derogatory comments about the Gujarat chief minister.
Nitin Gadkari, a former BJP president, and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, a party vice-president and the BJP’s Muslim face, met JD-U president Sharad Yadav at his residence in New Delhi for over an hour as part of BJP’s efforts to prevent snapping of ties between the two parties.
BJP sources said after the meeting that the “situation was crucial” and efforts were being made to keep the alliance intact.
The meeting came a day after BJP patriarch LK Advani called Yadav and Nitish Kumar. BJP president Rajnath Singh and party leader Murli Manohar Joshi had also telephoned Nitish Kumar.
Yadav told reporters that his party will take a decision on continuing in the alliance in the next few days “as a number of things had happened”.
He said that “NDA exists right now” and efforts were being made to rectify the situation that had taken a bad shape.
JD-U leaders have talked about likely snapping of ties with the BJP following the elevation of Modi as chief of the party’s campaign committee for the Lok Sabha polls. Both BJP and JD-U are partners in NDA and run a coalition government in Bihar.
JD-U is opposed to projection of Modi as the prime ministerial candidate of NDA as he is seen as anti-Muslim and the party’s association with him could alienate Muslim voters in Bihar. Muslims constitute about 16.5 percent of Bihar’s population.
IANS
