Against the backdrop of the recent developments in the BJP-led NDA, which saw the JD(U)expressing strong reservations against projecting Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the Opposition PM candidate, a meeting of the alliance leaders has been convened on Saturday. The meeting will take place at the residence of NDA working chairman L K Advani here.
However, the strained ties between the BJP and the JD(U) will not figure in the discussions. Instead, the NDA leaders will discuss the ways and the means to enhance the cooperation and the common floor strategy on the eve of the resumption of the second phase of the Parliament’s Budget session.
Spelling out the agenda for the meeting, BJP president Rajnath Singh said the conclave would limit itself to the common strategies to be adopted in Parliament.
JD(U) sources concurred with the view and said that the meeting was not expected to go into the nitty-gritty of the strained ties between the two parties. “For that we need a separate meeting of the top leaders of the two parties. This cannot be discussed in meetings like these,” they said.
It was not until recently that the JD(U) had made it clear that it would not accept Modi as the NDA’s consensus candidate and that it wanted a candidate with ‘impeccable secular credentials’.
Another NDA ally, the Shiv Sena, has asked the BJP to make its stance clear on the matter at the earliest.