Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president and Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the BJP-JD(U) combine will fight the upcoming Bihar elections under the leadership of chief minister Nitish Kumar, putting to rest all speculation about the alleged tiff between the two coalition partners.
Shah said the alliance was "atal" (unbreakable) and that it was entering the elections under Kumar's leadership. "The Janata Dal (United) and the BJP will go to polls together and we will fight polls under the leadership of Nitish ji. This is absolutely clear,” said Shah in an exclusive interview with News18 Network Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi.
BJP and JD(U) are working under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the national level while in Bihar, the two parties will do so under the leadership of the current chief minister, added Shah.
Talking about the reported tiffs between the two parties, Shah said that disagreements are normal in a coalition and that they "should be considered a parameter of a healthy coalition". "Only thing is that these differences in opinion shouldn't turn into a change of hearts," said the minister.
Reports of tiffs between the two parties started spreading after the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U), which was offered a single ministerial berth in the Modi Cabinet 2.0, refused to join the government. Kumar then expanded the state Cabinet, bringing in more JD(U) leaders.
The parties did not attend Iftaar too, which fuelled further rumours about the tiffs.
Read other stories from the interview here.
First Published: Oct 17, 2019 8:37 AM IST
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