Won't return to NDA even if Modi is not PM candidate: JD(U)

Kolkata: JD(U) today ruled out any rethink on a return to NDA regardless of whether BJP decides to go for a prime ministerial candidate other than Narendra Modi after Lok Sabha polls.“JD(U) will under no condition go back to NDA even if Modi is not made PM (candidate) and they make a leader such as LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj or Rajnath Singh as their PM candidate after the elections,” JD(U) secretary general KC Tyagi told PTI in an exclusive interview.He was responding to a question on whether JD(U) would reconsider its stand if a situation arose after the elections where the BJP-led NDA would need to take the support of former allies to form the government.The situation in June, 2013, was different, he said. The party had held that if BJP made anyone other than Modi the PM candidate, then it would remain within the NDA. Asked about Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi's political agenda, Tyagi said, “Modi is a threat to secularism, while Rahul is not. Not because he is secular, he is not a force.”Asked whether Congress leaders had met Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar on the issue of seat adjustment, Tyagi replied, “I neither confirm nor deny (that). Until and unless special status is granted to Bihar, there is no question of meeting, sitting or chatting with... Congress. But it is too late also.”“Because of corruption, inefficiency and non-governance, the UPA government failed to check the communal growth of BJP and Modi,” Tyagi alleged.“And, the Congress of today is no match for Modi's politics. It is the Third Front which can fight both the communal Modi and the corrupt Congress,” he said. “That is why Modi is going again and again after the Third Front.The Third Front is a reality. Our prime ministerial candidate will be decided by the elected members of the constituent (parties) after the polls,” said Tyagi. Taking a dig at Rahul Gandhi over his fight against corruption, Tyagi wondered how Congress could forge an alliance with RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav, who has been convicted in the fodder scam.“Rahul has come out with a statement about not allowing corrupt people to be part of his new scheme of politics... Now, when corruption has become the focal point of Indian politics, how can Congress think of going in for an alliance with Lalu Prasad? This is double standards,” he said. Tyagi claimed that after Lok Sabha polls, Lalu Prasad will be politically wiped out of Bihar.“RJD is a frustrated house. Lalu Prasad has no role to play in Bihar politics after his conviction. After Lok Sabha elections, RJD will cease to exist in Bihar,” he said. Tyagi sounded confident about the prospects of the recently-agreed-to 11 party Third Front of which JD(U) is a member.Important regional parties from Andhra Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, too, have expressed a desire to join the grouping, he added. “But I will not name the parties right now,” he said.Asked as to how JD(U) had shared the dais with Samajwadi Party when it too was accused of being incapable of tackling the Muzzafarnagar riots, Tyagi said, “The basic difference between Modi and Mulayam Singh (Yadav) is that Modi is responsible for spreading communalism as the head of the state.“The administration of the SP government failed to check communalism in Muzzafarnagar. They are not communal. Their past record is not of that,” he said.Asked about the prospects of a Federal Front as mooted by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, Tyagi said, “The idea is not bad. I had given a proposal to her to call a meeting of all the chief ministers of eastern states and the northeast.“I hope that after the elections, she will be part of a broader secular framework against Modi.” He claimed that he had arranged talks between Nitish Kumar and Banerjee and also separately between her and Naveen Patnaik.Tyagi hoped that arch-rivals Banerjee and the Left Front would be in the same fold after the elections. He also claimed that newspapers and the corporate sector were in favour of Modi because his economic policies served big business.