NDA PM candidate issue
By Upendra Prasad
Ultimately the peace has been restored within National Democratic Alliance after an untimely hot debate over the issue of next Prime Ministerial candidate of the alliance. By initiating this debate Bihar CM Nitish Kumar wanted to seek assurance from BJP that Narendra Modi would not be projected as its Prime Ministerial candidate before the next Lok Sabha General Election, which is due in 2014. Needless to say that Mr Kumar failed to get that assurance and Narendra Modi now seems to be more comfortable within his party, which came to his rescue. Even RSS came to the rescue of Narendra Modi, despite the fact that Gujarat CM has not good relations with some of the top RSS leaders. In fact they were angry with him because of his opposition to Sanjay Joshi, who was forced to leave the party unceremoniously.
Why Nitish Kumar did choose the occasion of Presidential election to rake up the issue of Prime Minister Candidate? The main reason was that Nitish was losing patience over the rising clout of Modi within BJP, which was demonstrated by the ouster of Sanjay Joshi from the party. Nitish was hurt, when Ashwini Kumar Choube, a Minister of Bihar announced in Gujarat in a function celebrating the 100th anniversary of Bihar, that people of his state (Bihar) want Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India. Nitish had not allowed Modi even to campaign in Bihar by saying that his campaign would harm the electoral prospects of NDA. It was a shock for him that a Minister of his state talked in such a manner. Spokesmen of Nitish asked BJP to clarify whether, the stand of Mr Choube was also the stand of the party. No BJP leader took any notice of that query. Nitish expected BJP central leaders to dub the statement of Mr Choube his personal opinion, but he could not get any response either in the negative or in the affirmative.
Then came Sanjay Joshi episode. He was blue eyed boy of RSS. A very strong section of the party was supporting Mr Joshi. But he was forced to leave the party at the insistence of Narendra Modi. This episode unnerved Nitish. His own understanding of the internal politics of BJP was that Modi would be checked inside his own party by his own partymen and he would never be projected as its Prime Ministerial candidate. But, after the ouster of Sanjay Joshi from BJP, he revised his opinion and was afraid of the rising clout of Modi inside his party. Then came a statement by Narendra Modi that Bihar was backward because of caste politics of that state. When he gave this statement, he was in fact talking against his opponent Keshubhai Patel, who was using caste politics to weaken Modi in Gujarat. Nitish took it as a personal attack from Modi. This further angered him and he retaliated against Modi in his own way by mentioning post Godhra riot.
Sanjay Joshi episode had activated the BJP rivals of Modi. Keshubhai Patel was using his all strength to belittle Modi. There was a poster war going against Modi in Gujarat and Delhi. Even other Prime Ministerial aspirants of BJP had turned against Modi. Under these circumstances, Nitish thought it was the best time to hit Modi from outside, when he was facing opposition from inside. Calculation of Nitish was that the BJP leaders, who were envious of the rise of Modi, would welcome his attack on Modi and even RSS leaders would prevail upon them to declare that Modi was not their choice for the post of Prime Minister.
But this strategy backfired on Nitish. He was trying to strengthen the opponents of Modi inside BJP and RSS, but his attack on Modi only resulted in RSS backing for Modi. Even BJP was seen backing Modi on the issue of his secular credentials. Nitish wanted a secular Prime Ministerial candidate of NDA. The BJP and RSS came with the argument that Narendra Modi was a secular leader. (IPA Service)