Nitish Kumar (R) truncated his 17-year partnership with the BJP in June over the elevation of Narendra Modi (L) as BJP's election campaign in-charge. (File Pic)
With precise derision, Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, today shared his review of the BJP's outing of
Narendra Modi as its choice for prime minister.
(Chosen. Narendra Modi is BJP's candidate for PM) "The people of this country will never accept divisive forces. Their aim is to divide and rule this nation. We knew this would happen. About them, we can say
vinaash kaale vipreet buddhi (when downfall nears, one takes wrong decisions)," Mr Kumar said in Patna to reporters. Just to underscore the point, he added, "I told you so."
In June, when he amputated a 17-year partnership with the BJP, Mr Kumar had said that for all its demurrals, the BJP was clearing the path for Mr Modi to run for the country's top job. For months, Mr Kumar and his party, the Janata Dal United, had warned that would be a deal-breaker because like other detractors, they accuse Mr Modi of being a divisive leader who allowed hundreds of Muslims to be killed on his watch in Gujarat in 2002.
At a conference in Goa, the BJP said Mr Modi would be its campaign-in-charge for the national elections, due by May. Mr Kumar said he wasn't going to wait around for the next big promotion for the 63-year-old leader from Gujarat, and pulled the plug on the alliance. That meant the BJP had to exit the Bihar government. It denounced the chief minister for engineering the break-up to play up to the Muslims in the state who are an important constituent of his support base.
Mr Modi's selection as the BJP's presumptive prime minister -announced last evening - chartered a deep divide within his party as well, though eventually, only one important leader, LK Advani, publicly opposed the decision. The 85-year-old veteran skipped a meeting of the BJP's top decision-makers which endorsed Mr Modi's candidature.
(I am disappointed, Advani writes to BJP chief) Mr Advani had tried to convince party chief Rajnath Singh to test Mr Modi's impact on voters in five state elections likely to be held in November before shortlisting him as the BJP's frontman for the national election. But he was over-ruled and isolated, with other alleged dissenters like Sushma Swaraj and MM Joshi agreeing to follow the party line.