Now, CP Thakur says BJP might form Bihar govt after LS polls
A day after Sushil Kumar Modi said, "over 50 JD(U) legislators are in touch with the BJP" and were helping BJP candidates in polls, the national BJP vice-president CP Thakur said he was in favour of his party forming the government in Bihar.
A day after senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said, "over 50 JD(U) legislators are in touch with the BJP" and were helping BJP candidates in polls, the national BJP vice-president CP Thakur said he was in favour of his party forming the government in Bihar, should the Nitish government fall after the elections.
"We shouldn't mind taking outside support of like-minded legislators to form the government," Thakur told HT here on Wednesday. "I am against mid-term polls as it would impose heavy burden on the exchequer and also, nobody would like to face another poll immediately," he said.
Thakur's statement comes in the wake of former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, as also, BJP leader Syed Shahnawaj Hussein claiming that over 52 JD(U) MLAs were in touch with their party.
They had added that should the government fall due to defections, the BJP would support any group, but would not form a government on its own.
Thakur said if need be he would try to convince the central BJP leadership to think on this line and accordingly prepare the Bihar party leaders to take up the responsibility.
Asked about the basis of his contention that the JD(U) government might fall, he said, "Several JD (U) MLAs have told me that they would desert the party." He added, "Otherwise also, the government would soon be reduced to a minority, as it has become extremely doubtful that the independent and Congress legislators, who are now propping it, would remain with it," he added.
He said since the split in the NDA, the JD(U) government had failed on all fronts. "So, if the BJP gets the chance to form the government, it should lap it up to put Bihar's development back on rail," he said.
Notwithstanding what Modi said, a senior BJP functionary, who has direct access to the central leadership of the party, confided to HT a couple of days ago, that post LS results, Bihar would get a surprise. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, too, had openly said the Nitish regime would go post-polls.