BJP rejects Modi’s criticism

Prashant Kishor, a native of Bihar, had quit a United Nations health experts job in Africa in 2011 and returned to India to form a group of young professionals who devised the strategy to project Modi as the face of good governance in the 2012 Gujarat polls and last years general elections with resounding success.

In a direct attack on Modi and his confidant Shah, it said “a thorough review must be done of the reasons for the defeat as well as the way the party is being forced to kowtow to a handful and how its consensual character has been destroyed”.

While ruling out Shah’s ouster as BJP president in the wake of Bihar election defeat, Gadkari demanded stringent action against those making irresponsible statements against the Prime Minister and party chief.

“It shows those who would have appropriated credit are bent on shrugging off responsibility for the disastrous showing in Bihar”, the statement added, in a clear reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.

The party has been crippled in the past by infighting among leaders, with several of them – including Advani – harboring ambitions to become India’s next prime minister.

“Modi-Amit Shah company have taken over the party and suppressed all the dissenting voice sidelined all the senior leaders. What I said was that it was the people’s verdict and we must introspect”, he told IANS. The party’s lawmakers pushed for beef bans around the country ostensibly to protect the cow, which many Hindus consider holy, but really as a ploy to divide Hindus and Muslims, a few of whom eat beef.

BJP leaders were hopeful of turning the tide in Bihar, to prove that the Delhi defeat was a fluke.

The camp of veteran leader Lal Krishna Advani has targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the loss of the BJP in Bihar. Dawn headlined its front-page lead “Bihar steals Modi’s firecrackers”, with a prominent picture of Nitish and Lalu. No other BJP leaders were as visible through the election as Modi.

Fitch said the defeat does not change its medium-term economic outlook for India. Joshi had been asked to stand for elections from elsewhere, vacating his own constituency Varanasi for Modi.

The Congress was set to grab 15 seats, followed by BJP allies Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) with five, the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) three and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) also with three seats.

The Los Angeles Times said, “The loss in Bihar, where Modi campaigned fiercely, was viewed as a rebuke of the governing BJP’s often divisive rhetoric and of Modi’s year-and-a-half in power, which critics say has failed to bring the economic reforms he promised”. Mr Modi, effective campaigner that he is, is anything but local to the people of Bihar.