Shiv Sena’s pre-poll tension with big brother BJP has found resonance in Bihar. National Democratic Alliance member Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) has revealed fissures within the BJP in Bihar, in its response to an editorial in Sena organ Saamna.
The RLSP won three Lok Sabha seats in Bihar and its leader Upendra Kushwaha is currently Minister of State for Rural Development. In an open letter, its national principal general secretary Shivraj Singh attributed the NDA’s poor performance in the recent bye polls to ‘disloyalty’ to Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the “top leader of the State NDA.”
He wrote, “…the top leadership of the State NDA was also witnessed as opposing the candidature of Mr. Narendra Modi for Prime-Ministership in the garb of pseudo secularism on the same line on which JDU was opposing.” (sic)
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Bihar BJP president Mangal Pandey and former Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi are seen as the vanguard of the NDA in the State. Mr. Singh also claimed that Mr. Modi not campaigning and the inability of the State NDA leadership to convince voters that they could bring about change led to their four-seat score in the recent bye polls for 10 assembly seats in Bihar.
Other factors for the defeat, he mentions, is the absence of a leader from the most backward communities and the lukewarm response from Kushwaha and Bhumihar castes. The recent editorial in Saamna opined that the Modi wave was absent in State elections — in which local factors have greater impact.