Narendra Modi not needed in Bihar: JD-U

The Janata Dal (United), the senior partner in Bihar’s ruling coalition, has rejected the BJP’s call to rope in Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in the NDA’s Lok Sabha poll effort in the state. HT reports.

The Janata Dal (United), the senior partner in Bihar’s ruling coalition, has rejected the BJP’s call to rope in Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in the NDA’s Lok Sabha poll effort in the state.

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“No, thanks. We have our (Sushil) Modi in Bihar and don’t need to outsource another Modi (from Gujarat),” JD(U) spokesman Neeraj Kumar told reporters here on Friday.

Kumar was responding to BJP national general secretary Rajiv Pratap Rudy’s statement on Thursday that the JD(U) needed Narendra Modi in Bihar as much as the BJP needed him at the national level.

But Devesh Chandra Thakur, another senior leader, said the JD(U) had no objection to the Gujarat CM becoming chairman of the BJP central election committee, as was being speculated.

But this, he clarified, did not mean that the JD(U) would endorse a decision to pitch Modi as the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate.

BJP leaders had blamed the JD(U)’s criticism of Modi as a major factor in party nominee PK Shahi’s defeat in the Maharajganj Lok Sabha byelection.