The Janata Dal (United) MLC Devesh Chandra Thakur on Tuesday said his party would sever ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party if the latter projected a 'communal' person as the party's prime ministerial candidate in next Lok Sabha election in an apparent reference to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
"JD(U) will not comprise its secular credentials and never accept a communal person to be projected by the BJP for the prime minister's post," the JD(U) MLC and a confidant of the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar told.
"Kumar is not in the race for the NDA's prime ministerial candidate and he has said so in advance and ruled himself out, he said.
Thakur's stock in the JD(U) skyrocketted after he had successfully intervened to mollify the MNS chief Raj Thackarey who had dared the Bihar chief minister to hold with the Bihar Diwas functions in Mumbai in March this year.
The JDU on Monday endorsed party leader Nitish Kumar's call for projection of a secular person as the alliance's prime ministerial candidate ahead of the general elections saying his stand is consistent in the backdrop of his secular credentials.
"Kumar's secular credentials and his call for projection of a secular person as NDA's prime ministerial candidate should be understood in proper perspective," Bihar JD-U president Vashistha Narayan Singh told reporters.
"The chief minister's stand on secularism has been consistent and has remained so in the past and present and will be so in future too... His comments on NDA's prime ministerial nominee is fit opinion."
Singh said Kumar's opinion on prime ministerial candidate should be understood in proper perspective as India is a multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-lingual country with a large population of poor people spread over a vast geographical area.
Kumar, he said, has 'rightly' addressed these geographical points and put forth his view on the prospective prime ministerial candidate of NDA.
The alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the JD-U had been worked out on well settled principles comprising status quo on article 370 of Constitution and judicial and negotiated settlement of the vexed Babri Masjid issue among others.
"Kumar's stand on NDA's prime ministerial candidate vindicates JD-U's stand," he added.
