PATNA: BJP Bihar incharge and Union minister Ananth Kumar on Tuesday said the party wouldn’t announce its Chief Ministerial candidate ahead of the Assembly polls, only to be contradicted by senior party leader Sushil Kumar Modi, who said a decision in this regard “would be taken at the appropriate time”.
“The BJP will not announce its Chief Ministerial candidate and it will fight the Assembly elections in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” said the Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers.
However, Sushil Modi, former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister, accused the media of twisting Ananth’s statement. “We are tactically not divulging our stand on the Chief Ministerial candidate for the Bihar Assembly polls,” he told mediapersons.
Further, slamming the recent coming together of the RJD and the JD(U), Ananth said, “Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar are faces of ‘Jungle Raj’ and Narendra Modi symbolises good governance and rule of law.” The Union Minister said the state BJP had a number of leaders eligible for the top job.
Chief Minister Nitish and RJD chief Lalu had dared the saffron party to declare its candidate for the top job after their Janata Parivar alliance named the former as its Chief Ministerial nominee. On Monday, BJP ally, the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party said that its party chief and Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha should be declared the Opposition combine’s Chief Ministerial candidate. However, the LJP of Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, another BJP ally, had said last week that Paswan would not be the NDA’s Chief Ministerial candidate. And former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, who recently announced his intention to join the NDA, said he was not in the race for the CM candidate.
‘BSP Prepared’
BSP president Mayawati on Tuesday said her party would contest the coming Assembly elections in Bihar with “full preparation” and “strength”.
“The BSP movement has its roots in Bihar and the party has been winning MLAs’ seats there...BSP is a movement besides being a political party and for enhancing the party base as well as giving the movement a momentum, the next Assembly elections will be contested with full preparation and strength,” she told party leaders from Bihar.
Mayawati, however, did not specify as to how many seats the party would contest in Bihar this time.
The BSP had drawn a blank in the 2010 Bihar Assembly polls though it had contested 239 of the 243 seats. In 2005, it won two seats after fielding candidates in 238 constituencies. The BSP had bagged five of the 249 seats it had contested in 2000.