If BJP picks Modi as PM candidate, we'll quit: JD(U)

The rift between Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi seems to have widened further. The JD(U) has indicated that it will quit the National Democratic Alliance if the BJP chooses Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate.

While the JD(U) has been trying hard to cover up the matter by saying Nitish did not name anyone, speaking to CNN-IBN, JD(U) MP Sabir Ali made it clear that his party will not support Modi as the NDA's prime ministerial candidate. "He is from the BJP, we have no right to support Narendra Modi but we are saying if he will be promoted we will back out," said Ali.

"We are not targeting anybody. That's not our agenda. Our agenda as a coalition partner is to look that the NDA should improve and make a large picture," he added.

However, BJP leader Yatin Oza finds Modi apt for the Prime Minister's post and praises him saying "he has full capacity to take everybody together".

"Modi is one of the best secular leaders. Wait for six months and let the Gujarat elections come… it will silence each and every critic of his," said Oza.

Talking about the 2002 Gujarat riots and that it could be one reason Nitish is not ready to back Modi, Oza said, "I really don't know why we should keep this ghost alive?...It happened as a natural reaction from the majority community. It was beyond his visualisation, beyond his thinking that this would happen."

In an interview to the national daily 'Economic Times', Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had insisted that the NDA should name its Prime Ministerial candidate before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and the candidate must have secular credentials and a liberal frame of mind.

This is not the first time that Nitish has made his aversion to Modi apparent. In 2011, at a BJP executive in Patna, the two were at loggerheads over an advertisement issued by the Gujarat BJP.

Modi has also been taking digs at the politicians from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh for what the Gujarat Chief Minister calls resorting to caste-based politics.

Nitish had then said that Modi, who has been a constant irritant in the JD(U)-BJP coalition ties in Bihar, should mind his own business instead of making comments on others.

"One should think about one's own situation (Bihar par tippani karne walon ko apne halaat ke bare me sochana chahiye)", he had told reporters in reply to a question when asked for his reaction to Modi's remarks targeting Bihar leaders.