Nitish-Modi slugfest may help Advani

Anita Saluja

New Delhi: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's thumbs-down to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has brightened the prospects of NDA working chairman L K Advani, who may emerge as the compromise candidate in the NDA Prime Ministerial race. After Nitish's snub to Modi, senior BJP leaders are not ruling out Advani's name for the topmost post, though he failed to deliver in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, where he was pitted against Manmohan Singh.

Sources stated that the BJP is not inclined to name Narendra Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate ahead of the 2014 elections, fearing that its Allies like the JD (U) and Shiv Sena would walk out of the alliance, soon after his name is declared. Modi, instead, would be named as BJP Campaign Committee Chairman, prior to the polls, keeping the window open for finalizing the Prime Ministerial candidate.

Depending on the outcome of the elections, the candidate will be announced. If under the leadership of Modi and Rajnath Singh, the party gets a thumping majority, Modi will become the Prime Minister and if not, leaders like Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley will move to the forefront. Given the animosity among various factions of the party, Advani, the father-figure, may emerge as the dark horse, who would be acceptable to all the leaders, except Modi.

Nitish's vitriol against Modi on Sunday was music to the ears of his rivals in the party, who till now, were sulking in the NaMo self-created wave. Except for BJP President Rajnath Singh, who is dancing to the tune of Modi, no senior leader in the party is backing him. For Rajnath, sources stated, Modi is his trump-card in the elections.

While the Gujarat Chief Minister will give him all the necessary backing, financially and morally, to assist the campaign for the party, Modi may, eventually support Rajnath Singh for the Prime Minister's post, if his name is resisted by the Allies. Rajnath Singh, however, is unlikely to be backed by his colleagues like Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and even Advani.

The campaign for Advani as Prime Minister commenced on Monday, with Yashwant Sinha coming out in the open to back him. Sinha said, "Advaniji is the senior-most, most respected leader and if he is available to lead the party and government, then that should end all discussion. Everyone should fall in line and work together for the party under his leadership. But call will have to be taken first by Advaniji, himself, secondly by the party and finally by NDA." Apparently, Nitish Kumar has no qualms in supporting Advani as the Prime Minister, with whom he had worked in the Vajpayee Government.

Lest, he should be blamed for the party statement against Nitish Kumar, which advised the Bihar Chief Minister to focus on the corrupt UPA government rather than concentrating all his energies against BJP Chief Ministers, BJP President Rajnath Singh played host to the BJP leaders from Bihar on Monday.

State BJP President C P Thakur backed the party president for the statement made against Nitish Kumar and dispelled the notion that the BJP leaders in the State were averse to breaking ties with JD (U) in the State and were opposed to Modi. In the coming days, the rift in the BJP is bound to widen, as the Allies, too, are keen to play a key role in determining the NDA's Prime Ministerial candidate.

Except for the duo � Modi and Rajnath � no one is averse to the Allies like Nitish Kumar and Uddhav Thackeray dabbling in the internal affairs of the BJP, as they are only helping the likes of Advani, Sushma and Arun Jaitley to be projected as an alternate to Modi, in the race for Prime Ministership.