New Delhi: Even as Narendra Modi is being projected as a prospective candidate of BJP for the post of Prime Minister, JD-U leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has put a spanner by saying that NDA’s nominee for the top post should be somebody with “secular credentials”.
Significantly, his views were echoed on Tuesday by BJP leader and Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who said the coalition’s Prime Ministerial candidate should be “acceptable to all sections of the society.” Kumar noted that India is a multi-religious and multi-lingual country and its “leader should not have rough edges in his personality”.
He emphasised that NDA will have to declare its candidate well ahead of the Lok Sabha elections to be held in 2014 so that the electorate knows who they are voting for but insisted that he was not aspiring for the Prime Ministership. “The NDA should have a leader who can feel for the underdeveloped states like Bihar… This leader should be acceptable to every constituent of the alliance. To me, the leader of the coalition should have secular credentials,” Kumar told.
“It (NDA leader) should not be someone who can develop developed states, but who has a feel for underdeveloped states,” the Bihar Chief Minister said. The comments assume significance as these come at a time when the Gujarat Chief Minister is being talked about as a prospective candidate of BJP for the Prime Minister’s post.
Kumar has made known his unease with Narendra Modi a number of times earlier and because of that the Gujarat Chief Minister was kept away from campaigning in Bihar during the last Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
Kumar said in the interview that the Prime Ministerial candidate should be someone who has absolute faith in democratic values.
Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar’s call to the NDA to project a ‘secular’ leader as the prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 parliamentary polls today drew flak from a BJP minister who dubbed him ‘pseudo secular’.
“These are pseudo secular leaders wearing the hat of secularism to suit their convenience”, BJP leader and Animal Husbandry Minister Giriraj Singh told without naming the chief minister. “These leaders become secular when they don’t need support of the BJP, but conveniently forget their secular credentials when the party’s help is needed”, asserted Singh.
He cited as examples LJP president Ramvilas Paswan and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad. Singh said Paswan enjoyed power during the NDA government headed by then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but once he moved away he became a ‘secular leader’. Similarly, he said, the RJD supremo had sought support of then BJP state unit president Kailashpati Mishra for forming the government in Bihar in 1990. (Agencies)