Patna:
By stressing that the prime ministerial candidate for 2014 must have secular credentials, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar made it clear that Narendra Modi should be deleted from the list of contenders. Mr Modi is the chief minister of Gujarat; his party has retaliated it doesn't need tips on either secularism or worthy candidates, from Mr Kumar, who is its ally, both in Bihar and in the NDA, national coalition led by the BJP.
On Thursday , BJP leader Yashwant Sinha went a step further. When asked about Mr Kumar's focus on secularism as a per-requisite for the NDA's nominee for prime minister, Mr Sinha replied: "There are many people in the country who are trying to be flag-bearers of secular politics .but if you look deep into their character ,you will find they are rigid about caste . They spread casteism in politics, but on the other hand, they say they are secular ......Secularism means liberalism , liberalism is not just limited to religion." Mr Modi had said a few months ago that Bihar's socio-economic problems should be blamed on leaders whose policies are guided by caste.
Senior BJP leaders said today that Mr Sinha expressed his own and not the party's opinion. In a recent interview to NDTV, BJP president Nitin Gadkari said that he had assured Mr Kumar that a decision has not yet been taken on Mr Modi's status for the general election.
Mr Modi was in his first term as chief minister of Gujarat when the state was ravaged by independent India's worst communal riots - more than 1200 people were killed in less than a month, most of them Muslims. His development of Gujarat as a preferred destination for investment and industry, his popularity among voters, and his unmitigated status as one of the BJP's biggest crowd-pullers has powered his ambition to move to national politics. But the shadow of the Gujarat riots remains inescapable.
Mr Kumar, also noted for his development of Bihar, has denied that he wants to run for Prime Minister. But to protect the commitment shown to him by his state's 18% Muslim population, he forbade the BJP from flying in Mr Modi to campaign in Bihar first for assembly elections, and then for the general elections in 2009.