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Thursday, May 29, 2008
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Revolt against Sushil Modi

Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI: Nearly two dozen Bihar BJP legislators have landed here and met party president Rajnath Singh and senior general secretary Arun Jaitley demanding that Sushil Modi be removed as Deputy Chief Minister.

Their slogan: BJP ko bachana hai, Modi ko hatana hai (If the BJP is to be saved in Bihar, Modi must be ousted.)

One of the MLAs told The Hindu that the dissidents had talked “very frankly” to Mr. Singh and Mr. Jaitley, pointing out that Mr. Modi was bulldozing any opposition by saying that whatever decisions he had taken were cleared by L.K. Advani or Mr. Singh or by both.

“This time when the Cabinet reshuffle was done by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar [of the Janata Dal-United], who had consulted Mr. Modi, it became clear that Mr. Modi failed to take the BJP central leadership into confidence. Portfolios of two senior party leaders — Nand Kishore Yadav and Ashwini Chaubey — were changed. That was the signal for an all-out rebellion. The cat was out of the bag. Mr. Modi had been doing this — using Mr. Advani and Mr. Singh’s name to do what he pleases,” said one MLA.

The dissidents claimed that even if a consensus decision was taken among BJP members of the Assembly or of the Legislative Council, the majority would be with those who wanted Mr. Modi out.

Senior party leaders from Bihar have pointed out that the BJP used to be a bigger than the JD(U) in the State. But today the JD(U) is bigger, having expanded its base at the expense of the BJP. Their allegation is that Mr. Modi has promoted himself, not the party.

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