New Delhi:
The BJP top brass on Friday night failed to take a final call on heading a new government in Jharkhand as differences persisted who will be its chief minister.
The leaders met at the residence of party president Nitin Gadkari discussing the issue but no decision could be reached, BJP sources said.
The meeting was attended among others by Arun Jaitley and Ananth Kumar. The leaders later met L K Advani and deliberated on the issue.
However, former party chief Rajnath Singh, who has been appointed as a central observer for Jharkhand, was not present in the meetings this evening.
Having failed to decide to lead a coalition government formation in Jharkhand for 18 days, BJP now appears to be open to accepting the JMM demand for rotational power sharing between the two allies.
JMM chief Shibu Soren wants BJP to lead the government for 28 months and then support a JMM Chief Minister for the remaining 28 months of the state Assembly. Both the JMM and the BJP have 18 seats each in the 82-member House.
Ties between BJP and JMM had come under strain when Jharkhand Chief Minister Shibu Soren voted against BJP sponsored cut motions on April 27. BJP parliamentary Board had decided to withdraw support to Soren government but put it on hold when Shibu's son Hemant wrote a letter proposing a
BJP-led government.