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The alleged rift between the Janata Dal –United (JD-U) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) widened on Monday, with JD-U chief Sharad Yadav slamming BJP leader Balbir Punj for backing Narendra Modi for the Prime Minister’s post. Punj had extended his support to Modi on Sunday and proposed his name for the PM’s post. Yadav condemned Punj's remark in New Delhi and stated that such statements might cause harm to the coalition. “The statement of the in-charge of Gujarat is not relevant in the present context and that is why I told him that such statement is not good for the coalition. JD-U has been constantly fighting against the UPA. It is not fighting against it for the past seven years but for the past 63 years. We are still fighting and there is no change in it. We have taken a special decision as the presidential post is a constitutional post,” Yadav said. Yadav also urged the party members not to make unnecessary remarks. “We have made an announcement that no one should speak about the past incidents so that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) remains intact,” he added. Recently, in an interview to a leading English daily, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had said that NDA's prime ministerial candidate should be a secular person.

Rift between JD-U, BJP widens over PM candidate