Patna,(BiharTimes): Though both Janata Dal (United) and Congress have given ample signals of coming closer there are several leaders in both the parties who are upset over the recent developments.

While some Congress leaders are in private not prepared to trust Nitish Kumar, as he, what they say, had betrayed Lalu Yadav and is doing almost the same to the BJP, there are many in Janata Dal (United), who went on to state that abandoning BJP would be an extremely risky move and the party may have to pay dearly. Some of the leaders like MLA from Kutumba in Aurangabad district, Lallan Ram, and Vijay Kumar Sahni––who is likely MP candidate from Muzaffarpur seat if Captain Jai Narayan Nishad is replaced––have gone on record to express their reservation and feared that such move may prove detrimental to both the NDA partners. Incidentally both of them are not dissidents and whole-heartedly worked to make Adhikar Rally a success.

There is no dearth of Janata Dal (United) leaders, who are surprised at the rapid change of political situation in Bihar. They all are questioning as to why is Nitish hell bent upon abandoning the BJP and apprehend that underestimating the Hindutva party may boomerang. However, they are all keeping their fingers crossed and hope that soon everything would be all right between both the parties.

In the first week of February a National Secretary of the party, Shivraj Singh, wrote a letter to the party president, Sharad Yadav, requesting him to call the National Executive meeting of the party to discuss the issue of the prime ministerial candidate of the National Democratic Alliance.

He called upon the party to openly debate the issue of secularism and added that Sharad needs to rise to the occasion as he is the convener of the National Democratic Alliance. He feared that if the party fails to respond to the situation when different leaders are giving varying statements on the issue, it may soon become irrelevant like the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka and Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar.

Similarly, there are several other leaders in the party who are not averse to the idea of projecting Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate of the NDA.

In the same way some Congress leaders, especially those of Bihar, are not very enthusiastic towards the softness shown by the central leadership towards the Bihar chief minister. Some of them are sure that Nitish will never align with the Congress even if Narendra Modi is projected as the BJP’s Prime Minister candidate. They are of the view that at present the graph of Nitish Kumar is coming down very sharply and in that case any alliance with him would be fraught with danger.

However, according to reports from New Delhi Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party president, Sonia Gandhi are inclined towards Nitish Kumar. There are at least two reasons for it. Firstly, the party wants to cut Narendra Modi to size and create a split in the NDA, which has only three parties apart from the BJP––that is Janata Dal (United), Shiv Sena and Akali Dal.

Secondly, the Congress leadership think that Lalu Yadav’s RJD and Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP are yet not in position to re-emerge as a force even though the former is pulling big crowd wherever he is going.