Modi no, no

JD (U) not opposed to Advani as PMA

• No compromise on a secular PMA
• Sharad Yadav elected JD(U) Prez for third time

New Delhi: The Janata Dal (United), a key ally of the BJP, has raised the pitch against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who is fast emerging as a strong contender to be the BJP prime ministerial candidate. The JD (U) asked the BJP to respect the coalition dharma and directly blamed Modi for his failure to act decisively to contain the Gujarat communal carnage that rocked the state for over three months. The preparations and the large-heartedness required to deal with the riots of that magnitude was sadly missing, senior JD (U) leader K C Tyagi said. At the National Executive, JD (U) president Sharad Yadav was re-elected for the third time in a row. The party constitution allows only two terms in a row, but a special concession was made for Sharad Yadav, as part of the power-sharing arrangement, as Nitish Kumar is the Bihar Chief Minister. According to well-placed party sources, the Political Resolution will be moved on the second day on Sunday but the references to the BJP prime ministerial candidate are likely to be watered down. No timeframe for declaring the BJP prime ministerial candidate will be set and the JD (U) will wait for the BJP Parliamentary Board to first take the decision, before reacting to it. "We cannot set a deadline for the BJP. But we cannot wait indefinitely," JD (U) leader Ali Anwar said.A (According to sources BJP wants a secular prime minister and is not opposed L K Advani. BJP president Rajnath Singh and leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, who has a personal rapport with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, have both reached out. The effort was to see if Nitish Kumar will make some concession to the BJP. The fact that Modi was in charge of Gujarat when hundreds of Muslims were killed in communal violence in 2002 makes him an unacceptable national-level leader for Nitish Kumar, who relies on the 15 per cent Muslim population in Bihar for electoral support. On the other hand, even Modi's detractors within the BJP � and there are some powerful ones � have been forced to concede his strength as a vote-getter. Since his third re-election in December as Chief Minister of Gujarat, the BJP cadres have been pushing their leaders to announce Modi as BJP Prime Ministerial face. Outside the JD (U) Nation Executive meeting venue in the Capital, there were massive posters of the two JD (U) powerhouses, Nitish Kumar and Sharad Yadav, taking on Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Under the caption,"2nd Mahabarath War 2014," Nitish Kumar and Sharad Yadav were cast as Krishna and Arjun, Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh were similarly cast. No BJP leader is seen on any of the posters.