The force of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar?s snub to alliance partner BJP seems to have dissipated somewhat with the latter deciding to take a ?long-term? view of recent events. Very clearly, if the BJP-JD(U) alliance has to end, it will have to be done by Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and not the BJP.
Top sources in the party said while Kumar would be conveyed the ?party?s anguish?, the question of breaking the alliance was a ?last resort? for the party. In the morning, state BJP chief CP Thakur and Bhagalpur MP Shahnawaz Hussain met with the party?s parliamentary party chairman LK Advani. Coming out of the meeting, Thakur said that a ?view will be taken once the party president comes to Delhi and a decision will be taken in a week or two.?
Obviously, the counsel from Advani, one of the chief architects of this 15-year-old alliance was to wait for tempers to cool. Party president Nitin Gadkari also met with Advani in the evening, followed by meetings with the state unit chief CP Thakur.
While the state unit of the party would like nothing better than to break the alliance and ?show Nitish Kumar his place?, the central leadership has always cautioned against losing this important ally. When Kumar in a fit of anger had cancelled a dinner for the visiting BJP leadership in Patna earlier this month, senior leaders like Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu wanted to open a dialogue with him. ?That was the day advertisements featuring Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar appeared in Patna newspapers. In such a surcharged atmosphere too, the central leadership wanted to speak to Kumar, while the state unit wanted nothing of it,? said a senior leader.
While in Patna, the state unit?s writ prevailed and nobody spoke to Kumar, in Delhi, the view quickly came around to saving the alliance. While nobody has spoken to Kumar yet, party spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said that ?the situation is under control.?