Against the BJP’s stand to not announce a chief ministerial candidate in the Bihar Assembly elections, Union Minister and Rashtriya lok Samata Party (RlSP) chief Upendra Kushwaha on Monday staked his party’s claim to the slot and asked the BJP to decide the leadership issue at the earliest in the high-stake polls.
With his party pitching him as NDA’s CM candidate in Bihar, Kushwaha said a delay by the BJP in deciding on the issue was “harming” the alliance as the RJD-JD(U) alliance has already kicked off its campaign under Nitish Kumar.
Talking to the media, Kushwaha said if the BJP did not want to project any face, it should make an announcement so that “all kinds of statements” made by the BJP leaders and its allies stop as they are detrimental to the NDA’s prospects.
As the RlSP proposed that its chief be projected as the NDA’s CM face in Bihar, the NDA ally has now sought to keep the issue wide open despite State BJP in-charge Ananth Kumar’s public announcement that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would alone be the face of the NDA in Bihar poll campaign, scheduled for later this year.
The BJP has, so far, refrained from projecting any leader as its chief ministerial pick as the party anticipates that ignoring claims of other aspirants could cost it politically.
Former Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi is seen as a natural choice but faces opposition from a section of upper caste State leaders. PM Modi too is confident that the issue would be sorted out amicably and all NDA partners would be soon speaking in one voice.
Notably, the RlSP has also asked the BJP to contest in 102 Assembly seats, leaving 74 and 67 seats for Ramvilas Paswan’s lJP and itself respectively.
According to sources in the BJP, RlSP’s comments were part of a”bargaining exercise”.
However, Kushwaha denied that his projection as the chief ministerial face was a pressure tactic saying every party has a right to offer an alternative and it was for BJP-led NDA to take a final call on the issue.
“NDA should sit together at the earliest and take a call on the issue of its chief ministerial candidate. Delay is harming us and more the delay, more the damage. We have not put any condition but only offered an alternative.
“At a time when the opposition alliance (lalu-Nitish) is speaking in one voice, it is necessary that we also speak in one voice. This alliance has already taken many steps forward. Unless NDA takes a decision, it will be difficult to stop all sorts of comments made by its leaders on the leadership issue,” he said.