Cong uses Prez contest to flirt with Nitish as insurance for 2014
Bihar leader snubs Modi’s PM aspiration &is backed by deputy
THE Congress has tasted blood by driving a wedge between the Opposition
parties in the buildup to the presidential poll. Now, with an eye on the 2014
general elections, it intends to move in for the kill.
Consolidation is the new buzzword for UPA’s largest party and not only
does this entail keeping its flock together, but also poaching secular
constituents of the BJPhelmed NDA such as the JDU. The Congress is understood
to have opened several back- channel communication lines with the latter and
its efforts appear to be bearing fruit.
Even as it consistently got encouraging signals from the JDU leadership
— including party chief Sharad Yadav and national spokesperson Shivanand Tewari
— with regard to UPA presidential nominee Pranab Mukherjee, the remarks of
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday were music to the Congress’s ears.
After differing with the saffron party over its stand on the
presidential candidate, Nitish said in Patna on Tuesday that the name of the
NDA’s prime ministerial candidate should be made public well before the next
Lok Sabha elections and, more significantly, it should be a secular person with
a liberal frame of mind.
Nitish’s stand was being viewed in political circles as a calculated
move to forewarn the BJP — the largest party in the NDA — against projecting
Gujarat CM Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate of the alliance
ahead of the parliamentary polls.
The fragile BJP- JDU relations were bound to come under further strain
as a result of the statement because Narendra Modi was believed to be emerging
as the strongest prospect for the PM’s post within the saffron party with the
apparent backing of the Sangh Parivar.
“ The leader must be secular and have abiding faith in the democratic
values,” he said and added: “ The NDA should have a leader who can feel for
underdeveloped states like Bihar... This leader should be acceptable to every
constituent of the alliance.” At the same time, Nitish clarified: “ I am not in
the race for prime ministership. I cannot even dream of that high office. The
Prime Minister should be from the bigger party. We can only play a supporting
role.” The Bihar CM has sought to know the identity of the prime ministerial
candidate two years before the general elections apparently to chalk out his
future political course of action well in advance. It is believed that if the
BJP becomes too much of a liability, Nitish could switch sides.
And this perceived widening rift has the Congress rubbing its hands with
glee. No wonder senior party leader and Union law minister Salman Khurshid
concurred with the Bihar CM.
“ I am hundred per cent in agreement.
We are a secular country, so our Prime Minister must be secular.
If there was any doubt about this in any political organisation, their
own leaders now coming out outspokenly and saying this clearly is welcome,”
Khurshid said in Delhi on Tuesday.
Sharpening its focus on the 19- MP JDU group in the Lok Sabha, the
Congress has been trying to woo Nitish since last year. But the Kurmi leader
from Bihar had not evinced much interest till recently.
The potboiler played out before the presidential election could,
however, alter the political landscape of the country.
It helps that Nitish already has an excellent rapport with three key
Congress leaders: Mukherjee, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh and
Ahmed Patel who is the political secretary to party president Sonia Gandhi.
Even HRD minister Kapil Sibal — he had rubbed the Bihar CM the wrong way over
the establishment of a central university in Gaya or Motihari — has mended
fences with him by flying to Patna and holding a long meeting.
Ramesh, in fact, has been very generous in sanctioning several Bihar
projects. The construction of 6,000 km of roads, for which the state got `
3,200 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, is just one instance of
the Centre’s openhandedness.
Adviser to the Prime Minister on pubic information, infrastructure and
innovations Sam Pitroda has also called on Nitish.
In July last year, the CAG had indicted the Bihar government in
connection with a land scam. But the Congress, which has shouted from roof tops
about real estate irregularities in BJP- ruled Karnataka, adopted a soft stance
with regard to Nitish.
Sources disclosed that right through the process of nominating its
presidential candidate, Congress managers were in touch with the JDU. The party
leadership also enjoys cordial relations with JDU Rajya Sabha MP N. K. Singh.
Congress strategists are of the view that striking an alliance with the JDU
would help the party in the long run, particularly because it has been
virtually non- existent in Bihar for more than two decades.
But sources close to the JDU leadership said on Tuesday that Nitish
would do business with the Congress only if he was convinced that the party had
severed ties with RJD leader Lalu Prasad, who is the Bihar CM’s political bête
noire.
