Amid growing speculation that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is exerting pressure on the BJP to declare the prime ministerial candidate before the next lok Sabha elections, BJP spokesperson Syed Shahnawaz Hussain said that the JD(U) was not creating any such pressure on his party and the name of the candidate would be decided by the BJP Parliamentary Board at the appropriate time.
Hussain told mediapersons in Patna on Sunday that leaders of erstwhile Samata Party George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar had entered into an alliance with the BJP when all other parties were treating the BJP “untouchable”.
later, the Samata Party had merged with the JD(U) in 2003 when Kumar was the Railway Minister during the NDA regime.
“Our alliance has remained intact and it will remain so in the future,” the BJP spokesperson added.
Both the JD(U) and the Shiv Sena are trusted allies of the BJP and would make all efforts collectively to oust the Congress-led UPA Government, he said.
Referring to Kumar’s objection to projection of Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate, Hussain told a news channel in Patna that no party could be branded communal or secular on the basis of presence of a single person in the party.
Not replying to various queries on Narendra Modi, the BJP leader said that the BJP Parliamentary Board is the only competent authority to decide on the matter and statements from anybody else has no significance.
The BJP leader said that there are some parties which have pledged their support to his party after the lok Sabha elections but they do not wish to go public at the present stage.
He also took a dig at the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s recent speech at the CII meeting, stating that the text of speech was more fit for a college function.
On Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the BJP spokesperson said that Sonia Gandhi had not accepted the post of Prime Minister but she never renounced the power.