In a significant remark,which could embarrass the BJP further after its poor performance in the recent general elections,the leader of its biggest ally on Sunday questioned the manner in which the NDA had fought the elections. Janata Dal (United) president Sharad Yadav said here that though the NDA fought the elections as a group,the grip was missing. Speaking at the end of the partys two-day national executive meet,Yadav said the BJP,which was leading the alliance,would have to take the maximum blame. The BJP is the biggest party in the alliance and hence they are to be blamed more,but they alone cannot be blamed totally, he said. The kind of understanding that should have been in the alliance during polls was missing this time,like we had when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the leader. That kind of understanding was somehow missing. Putting a question mark on the way the campaign was run by the NDA,he said the alliance was not visible everywhere. There was an alliance but it was not like the one in the past. The NDA was visible but only at few places,not at all places. We should have focused on farmers in our election campaign as we had so many leaders from rural background. But we did not go together at many places, Yadav said. Without mentioning the Rajnath Singh-Arun Jaitley spat over Sudhanshu Mittal or the fact that many BJP leaders started referring to Gujarat CM Narendra Modi as the next prime ministerial candidate even as the NDA was contesting the elections under L K Advanis leadership,Yadav said some internal fights that had taken place in the alliance had caused losses to the NDA. We JD (U) also suffered losses, he added. Yadav said the participants at the national executive expressed concern over the internal fights. We will discuss how to solve it whenever a meeting of the NDA takes place, he added. Yadavs comments came after many of his colleagues in the JD(U) accused the BJP of being responsible for the NDAs poor performance at the hustings. It is learnt that many leaders said the NDA didnt look a cohesive force. Leaders from UP,Bihar and Jharkhand also accused the BJP of behaving like a big brother. The partys Jharkhand unit president Jaleshwar Mahto strongly advocated the need for the party to contest the next Assembly election on its own. The JD(U) lost from both the seats it contested in Jharkhand. The strong feelings expressed by the leaders forced Sharad Yadav to assure them that the party would consider all options from now on. But asked if the JD(U) would stake claim to the post of Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha now that the UPA was considering offering the same to the Opposition as per convention,Yadav replied in the negative.
