Under attack from rivals within the party, senior BJP leader and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Sunday claimed that selection of candidates for the 102 seats the party was contesting in alliance with JD(U) was “a collective decision“.
“BJP is a national party and its style of functioning and other related important decisions are taken collectively,” Mr Modi said.
Stating that a wider process was adopted for the selection of candidates by the BJP for the 2010 Bihar Assembly polls, Mr Modi said the 18-member state Election Committee was involved in searching for candidates keeping in mind their ‘winnability’ factor.
“Accordingly, the committee suggested a panel of four prospective candidates and authorised the seven member Core Committee to take further step for final decision,” he said.
Mr Modi said he later produced a list of one candidate each for the 60 seats and a panel of two prospective candidates for the rest 42 seats to the Central Parliamentary Board, and the Board comprising party president Nitin Gadkari, former deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and other top leaders approved the first list of 87 candidates.
For the rest 15 seats, the Central Parliamentary Board authorised Gadkari to take a decision and the BJP president in consultation with leaders approved the names of 13 more candidates.
On the seat-sharing arrangement with the JD(U), a consensus was evolved within the party for 99 and for the rest two of the seats, the matter was referred to the Central committee, he said while seeking to silence his critics that he had adopted an arbitrary attitude towards allocation and allotment of tickets.
State BJP president C P Thakur and a section of other party leaders had recently, without naming Mr Modi, alleged that they had been ignored in the decision-making process for distribution of seats and allotment of party tickets.
