BJP will decide if Modi, Varun will campaign: Gadkari

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari Friday said his party will take its own decision whether Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Lok Sabha member Varun Gandhi will participate in the campaign for the coming Bihar assembly polls.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari Friday said his party will take its own decision whether Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Lok Sabha member Varun Gandhi will participate in the campaign for the coming Bihar assembly polls.

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"We have the right to decide which all leaders of the BJP should campaign in Bihar. We will decide it at the appropriate time and implement it," Gadkari said.

Sharad Yadav, president of BJP's electoral ally Janata Dal-United (JD-U), had recently suggested that Modi and Varun should be excluded from any joint campaign in Bihar, in view of their "anti-Muslim image".

The publication of an advertisement during the BJP national executive meet in Patna in June had evoked protests from Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, threatening the four-and-half years old BJP-JD(U) government in the state and the 14-year-old alliance between the two parties. However, the two patched up later.

Gadkari said that "the crisis in the Bihar alliance is almost solved". Terming it natural that some differences crop up in an electoral alliance, he denied there were differences among the leaders of his party's Bihar unit.

"(I am) hundred per cent confident the BJP-JD(U) alliance will return to power in Bihar," he said, adding: "We are contesting on the agenda of development achieved by the Nitish-led government, which is visible on the ground in the state."

"People have their horrific memories of the lawlessness and anarchy during the 15-year-long Lalu (Prasad)-Rabri Devi rule. They just do not want those dark days to return," Gadkari said.