PATNA, 9 June 2005 — Senior Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Nitish Kumar, while praising L.K. Advani for his stand on Jinnah and resigning from the party’s president’s post, said that by doing so, Advani has proved himself as a great leader and a man of reality.
Nitish, however, was quick to add that if Advani’s resignation is accepted by his party, the JD-U would reconsider its ties with the BJP depending on who takes over the position vacated by the former deputy prime minister.
“We are an ally of NDA and though this is their internal matters, we cannot be unaffected by the new developments within the BJP,” Nitish said.
Referring to Advani’s resignation Tuesday following the controversy over his references to Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah as a secular leader, Nitish told reporters that he had said nothing objectionable.
“Advani has given an issue for a national debate by calling Jinnah a secular leader,” said Kumar, whose JD-U is a key constituent of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).Nitish said Advani’s resignation and its acceptance were an internal matter of the BJP, but it was something that was bound to affect the JD-U and the NDA. His comments have created a flutter in the Bihar unit of the BJP with assembly polls due later this year.
Nitish, considered close to Advani, is being projected as the NDA’s chief ministerial candidate.
In the February assembly elections — which threw up a hung verdict — the BJP, JD-U combine got 92 seats in the 243-member Bihar Assembly. The alliance was hoping to better its tally in the next elections.
Nitish had announced earlier this week that 125 legislators of the dissolved Bihar Assembly, including those from the NDA, breakaway Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Steel Minister Ramvilas Paswan and 17 independents, would be paraded before President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in Delhi on June 10.
In view of Advani’s resignation, that program might have to be canceled.
Meanwhile, after praising Advani just a day ago for eulogizing Jinnah as a secular leader, railway minister and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) President Lalu Prasad Yadav, yesterday termed Advani’s resignation from the party president’s post an “elaborate drama” to drum up minority support.
“If he really means what he says, he should first resign from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and get rid of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi,” said Lalu.
