Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s strong message to his ally, the NDA, saying he can’t compromise with the issue of communal harmony at any cost, indicates that all is not well in the NDA.

The statements came in the backdrop of alleged bids by some top BJP leaders to create communal tension shortly after the BJP lost by-elections in the state.

Despite efforts, the NDA could win only one seat out of three it had contested in the bypolls in Bihar. What surprised the masses was the way efforts were launched to fan communal tensions in Araria, Darbhanga and Bhagalpur districts, but thanks to the alert administration, it was handled tactfully, giving enough ammunition to the opposition RJD to hit out at the chief minister.

A visibly annoyed chief minister has now said that he will not compromise over the issue of communal harmony. “Just like my uncompromising stand on corruption, I won’t allow communalism to flare up,” Kumar told a gathering for a function in Patna on Tuesday evening. He rebuffed the BJP saying, “We are coalition partners, but I am heading the government”.

A day before, Kumar strongly supported the statements of Union minister and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan asking the BJP to shed its “anti-Muslim” image.

“He (Paswan) is not a small leader. I support what he has said. He met me last night and we discussed many issues. We should respect his views,” Kumar told newsmen on Monday.

Paswan, minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, had on Sunday said, “As the BJP-led government is working with the agenda of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas (collective efforts, inclusive growth)’, it needs to do away with anti-minority perception. The early it sheds its anti-Muslim image, the better it will be for the NDA in 2019 elections”.

He also termed the BJP’s defeats in Gorakhpur and Phulpur a matter of worry. Nitish Kumar even asserted that although his party is in coalition, he will not support such activities.

“I can’t compromise with the issues of minorities despite being in the coalition. I have always done politics on my own conditions. The country will move forward only with love, tolerance and mutual cooperation,” he said.

In further embarrassment to the BJP, Kumar said that his party didn’t want to contest the by-elections to three seats in Bihar, but did it under tremendous “pressure” from its BJP ally.

He said the JD-U doesn’t fight elections when the vacancy is created due to death of a people’s representative. “We avoid contesting in such elections and we had decided not to contest but the BJP was very persuasive,” Mr Kumar claimed.

According to Mr Kumar, his party contested the Bihar by-elections just to avoid any blame on his part in case the results goes against them. “So we decided to fight elections despite knowing the end-result,” Kumar said. The NDA lost two of the three seats it had contested.