Filmstar-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha’s claims notwithstanding, the BJP has no plans to project him as the party’s chief ministerial candidate in the run-up to the Bihar Assembly elections, party sources said today.In Ranchi last week, Sinha told sections of the media that while he did not covet the CM’s post, he would regard it as an honour to be the party’s choice for the job. It now transpires that Sinha’s hopes were stoked by the BJP Bihar unit chief Gopal Narain Singh’s suggestion that Sinha lead a ‘‘parivartan yatra’’ from Champaran next month, as part of the election campaign that gets off with the ‘‘massive’’ Patna rally on December 2. Champaran has been chosen because of its association with Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha.But unlike Rajasthan or Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls last year, where Vasundhara Raje and Uma Bharati respectively led the campaigns, Sinha is not going to be the sole leader embarking on a yatra in Bihar, sources said. Just as in Maharashtra, where four leaders led yatras in four different parts of the state, in Bihar too, no single person will be projected as the prospective CM.Sources said the BJP is not in a position to project a CM candidate when it is fighting the elections as part of a coalition. In Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena was clearly the leader of the coalition and the BJP did not even get into the debate. In Bihar too, the BJP does not want to upset the JD(U), many of whose leaders are already wary of the alliance in view of the BJP’s revival of Hindutva. BJP sources said in the last Assembly elections, the party had won more seats than the Samata Party but still agreed to make Nitish Kumar the Chief Minister because Kumar was in a far better position to draw support from independent MLAs than a BJP CM.This time, too, the BJP knows that defeating the RJD-led combine is no easy task, and bringing together all ‘‘anti-Laloo’’ forces is the real priority. Although Sinha’s supporters feel he alone has the star appeal and ‘‘charisma’’ to take on Laloo Yadav, BJP leaders privately admit that his record as Union minister was hardly exemplary. The party is ready to use him in the poll campaign but Sinha’s hopes of becoming the ‘‘mukhia’’ of Bihar are entirely misplaced, sources said.
