BJP Parliamentary Board defers decision on Bihar dissidence

New Delhi, Apr 30 (UNI) The Parliamentary Board of the BJP today deferred its decision on the issue of growing dissidence in the Bihar unit of the party till Karnataka Assembly elections were over.

After one-and a-half hour meeting of the Board, senior party leader Arun Jaitley said the meeting would meet again to discuss the issue after Karantaka elections. Till then, it had appealed to party leaders, MLAs and MLCs in Bihar to maintain party discipline.

He said the Board took into consideration the detailed report presented before it by Mr Kalraj Mishra, party's incharge of Bihar and state president Radha Mohan over the developments in the state, where a large number of party MLAs were not happy over the style of functioning of Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi and demanding his removal.

Party sources confirmed that as many as 32 of the 55 BJP MLAs had been camping in the capital to mount pressure on the party leadership to remove Mr Modi to "save the party" in the state.

However, 20 of the 32 had returned to Patna before the meeting started.

Sources said the MLAs had alleged that Mr Modi was working at the behest of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and ignoring the party's interests in the state. A demand was also being made that the BJP extend its support to the Nitish Kumar Government only from outside.

The party had witnessed turmoils in Maharashtra and Bihar last week. While it successfully tackled the Maharashtra crisis by removing the Mumbai unit president to please Maharashtra stalwart and former Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde, it had deferred the decision on Bihar.

UNI KAS SP MIR KP2054