Bihar BJP to celebrate Narendra Modi's birthday

atna: Even though the BJP is still grappling with the issue of who will lead the party in the parliamentary elections in 2014, its Bihar unit seems to be of the view that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi will be ultimately be the chosen one. The state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has, for the first time, decided to celebrate the Chief Minister's birthday tomorrow.

Interestingly, the celebrations come even as the party is fully aware that that the development might anger Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, whose party, Janata Dal(United) partners with the BJP in the state and is a crucial constituent of the National Democratic Alliance (NA) coalition that the latter heads. Mr Kumar is not known to be a fan of his Gujarat counterpart, having made his discomfort known on more than one occasion with the latter who has been struggling to shed off the "communal" tag since the riots in his state in 2002. He has also made it amply clear that Mr Modi would not be acceptable as the NDA's prime ministerial candidate. The Bihar Chief Minister had earlier, without taking Mr Modi's name, said that a contender for PM must have "clean and secular" credentials.

The Bihar BJP, though, clearly seems unfazed as it has planned to celebrate Mr Modi's birthday at the party office. Large hoardings of the BJP strongman have been put up across the state capital of Patna. Invites for the celebration, that were sent out by the Narendra Modi Fans' Association and were faxed from the party office, say that the event will be attended by Giriraj Singh, a senior minister in Mr Kumar's cabinet and a known Modi supporter, BJP state president Dr. CP Thakur and several party MLAs among others.