File photo of Yashwant Sinha
Former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha today embarrassed his party, the ruling BJP, when he used offensive language while responding to reporters in Ranchi who wanted to know whether he was in the race to be Jharkhand's next chief minister.
An irate Mr Sinha, 76, said, "The media forces the mike into our faces asking who the next chief minister will be," and then used a pejorative in Hindi to suggest that just about anyone could become chief minister.
Mr Sinha, a three-term MP from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand, did not contest the general elections this year, leading to much speculation about his future political plans. The senior leader's surprising use of bad language in public is seen as a manifestation of his pique over the reluctance of the BJP leadership to nominate him as their spearhead in Jharkhand, where assembly elections are due this year.
The state is at present ruled by a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) coalition led by Hemant Soren.
Mr Sinha was arrested last month for instigating a group of BJP workers to tie up a state electricity board official against prolonged spells of power-cuts in Hazaribagh, which his son Jayant now represents in the Lok Sabha.
The senior BJP leader was released from jail on June 19 after he agreed to pay the bail bond, a move that he had resisted for several days. Mr Sinha's refusal to accept bail was seen as part of a plan to force the party leadership to name him the BJP's chief ministerial face in the state.
"It is a sin to talk about development in Jharkhand. One should only do politics here," he said today.