It's Nitish Kumar vs Modi as JD(U) comes out swinging

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s prophesied path towards national leadership – and perhaps prime ministership – isn’t going to be smooth, going by the utterances of leaders of at least one of the BJP’s alliance partners. On Sunday, two leaders of the Janata Dal (United), the second largest constituent in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), came out swinging against Modi. One of them, the JD(U)’s Jharkhand unit spokesman Pramod Mishra, sought to downplay one of Modi’s main planks – the claim that he had engineered a Gujarat industrial resurgence. Mishra suggested that Modi’s claims may be far less spectacular than had been projected since Gujarat was already among the most developed States in India when he took over. [caption id=“attachment_86646” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“The glovers are coming off, as the JD(U) challenges Narendra Modi’s record in office. Subhav Shukla / PTI”]  [/caption] In contrast, Mishra said, the work of Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar was rather more challenging since he had to virtually rebuild the State from scratch. “The previous governments in Bihar had left the State in ruins and Kumar had to put it on development track,” he said. Mishra wasn’t the only JD(U) leader to take potshots at Modi on Sunday. The party’s spokesperson and senior Rajya Sabha leader Shivanand Tiwari had rather more withering comments to make about the BJP narrative that suggests that Modi is being primed for national leadership, and perhaps the prime ministership. Tiwari told the Indian Express that Modi was “day-dreaming” about national leadership when in fact he had thus far failed to secure the “unequivocal endorsement” from within his own party. “The wisdom of people of the country of over 120 crore people is not so weak as to hand over the mantle of national leadership to a person who had failed to deliver justice and perform raj dharma to over 5 crore people (of Gujarat),” Tiwari told the newspaper. Modi himself has denied that his three-day fast, which ends today, is aimed at projecting himself as Prime Minister-in-waiting, but that’s the overarching narrative from the BJP and the other leaders at the venue of the fast. But Tiwari said that Modi’s speech, on the first day of his fast, was “boastful” and “arrogant” and offered no remorse for the 2002 Gujarat riots. Tiwari too sought to play down Modi’s claims to having engineered a Gujarat industrial miracle, pointing out that the people of Gujarat had always been industrious and the State had always been a top performer. “Nobody has suddenly done a miracle in Gujarat.” Tiwari’s comments are not without significance, given that he is considered close to Nitish Kumar, who is seen as a rival contender for the mantle of the national leadership of the alliance in the event of the NDA’s return to power in 2014. A recent US Congressional Research Report that had spoken of Modi as potentially a candidate for prime ministership based on his record of “good governance” in Gujarat also had glowing words of praise for Nitish Kumar. That report had said that Nitish Kumar offered “another positive example” of good governance in Bihar and had won “national attention through his considerable success in emphasising good governance over caste-based politics.” It added the Nitish Kumar “is credited with restoring law and order across much of the State, as well as overseeing infrastructure and educational improvements of direct benefit to common citizens projects.” The JD(U)’s leaders’ synchronised comments criticising Modi point to the challenges that lie ahead for Modi - even within the ranks of the BJP’s alliance partners - as he is being primed for national leadership. It isn’t just the Congress and the ranks that Modi’s army of supporters like to dismiss as “pseudo-secular” that will repeatedly invoke the 2002 Gujarat riots to thwart his ascendance. Yet, Modi was on Sunday anointed as the “Prime Minister in the making” by crickter-turned-BJP MP Navjot Singh Sidhu, who likened him to Subhash Chandra Bose and Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. “We need people like Modi who, like Subhash Chandra Bose and Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, has dedicated his life to the nation,” Sidhu told a gathering at the venue of Modi’s fast. “A former prime minister once said that of the Rs 100 sent for poor people, only Rs 5 reached them. I say, it is shame on the PM. Now the Prime Minister in making (pointing at Modi) says, ‘Give me Rs 100 and I will give the poor Rs 110’,” Sidhu said. “Give Modi the reins of the country for 10 years and people will start saying they want their children to become politicians like Modi,” Sidhu said. Modi, he said, had turned around Gujarat from “zero to hero”; the State that had been bankrupted under earlier administrations was today rich, he claimed.