A day after JD(U) snapped ties with NDA, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar rejected BJP's charge of betrayal, and squarely blamed it for the break-up of the 17-year-old alliance, saying his party was left with "no other way" in the "new era" within BJP.

As the war of words intensified between JD(U) and BJP over the elevation of Narendra Modi as the saffron party's poll campaign chief, Kumar also accused BJP of "betraying" and "cornering" its elders, in an oblique reference to the sidelining of LK Advani.

Advani was miffed over Modi being anointed the party's campaign commitee chief, an event that triggered the split within the NDA with the JD(U) seeing this as the first step before the Gujarat Chief Minister is named as BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Kumar maintained that the decision of his party to part ways from the BJP was "not taken in haste" and it happened after "due deliberations" and at an "appropriate time."

Jyothi Shankaran

    Jyothi’s last role was as Senior Editor with the business news channel Bloomberg TV India. He also worked as News Editor at business-standard.com, the online version of the business newspaper Business Standard. Jyothi is a chemical engineer from the Regional Engineering College, Srinagar.