Sushil Modi blamed the opposition for the "baseless speculations" (FILE)
Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi on Monday expressed dismay over “rumours” that his party wanted to “replace” Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and said this might have contributed to the debacle in a recent by-poll.
Mr Modi, who had served as the Deputy Chief Minister for more than a decade and is still seen as the man most trusted in the BJP by Nitish Kumar, asserted that his former boss had the “mandate till 2025 and there are no ifs and buts”.
Mr Modi blamed the opposition, without naming any party in particular, for the “baseless speculations” aimed at creating “political instability.
“The NDA had fought the 2020 assembly polls under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and won the people's mandate”, recalled the Rajya Sabha MP who came out with a flurry of tweets, notably, barely a couple of days after Union Home Minister Amit Shah's tour of the state during which he also met the Chief Minister.
Mr Modi also said that speculations about the possibility of BJP going for “its own Chief Minister” might have sent a wrong signal among voters during the recent by-poll in reserved Bochahan assembly seat where the party was defeated by the RJD by a huge margin.
In the assembly elections of 2020, the BJP had for the first time outperformed Kumar's JD(U) and though he was backed for yet another term in office, in keeping with the assertions of the PM and Shah beforehand, speculations have been rife that the saffron party might want to have its own man as Chief M inister in the state where it has had none so far.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)