Sushil Modi asks Bihar Chief Minister to resign

Claiming that Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi would be removed from office in the event of merger of the JD(U) and RJD, Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi today asked him to resign on his own and recommend fresh elections in the state to pre-empt the move.

"I suspect that Manjhi will be removed from the Chief Minister's post post-merger of the JD(U) and RJD after Makar Sankranti... I would advise him to resign on his own and recommend fresh elections," he told reporters here.

He said that Bihar would be pushed into extended period of political instability after the proposed merger of the two erstwhile rivals. On the Chief Minister reportedly warming upto the BJP by offering to work in tandem with Prime Minister Narendra Modi for development of Bihar, the former deputy chief minister of Bihar said such a proposal had not been officially communicated, but if an offer was indeed made, the BJP Parliamentary board might consider it.

On the 185+ target set by the BJP central leadership in the Assembly polls scheduled for late this year, he said that the target was a realistic one given a strong undercurrent prevailing against the JD(U) and RJD. Modi claimed that a virtual cold war has broken out between the Chief Minister and his predecessor Nitish Kumar and added that Manjhi had recently called a 'secret' meeting of the SC/ST officers to send out a terse message to Kumar that he had emerged out of Kumar's shadows.