Nitish may campaign in Gujarat

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar may campaign in Gujarat for the Lok Sabha elections, a JD-U leader said Tuesday, in what may increase the possibility of a face-off with his bete noire Narendra Modi.

Janata Dal-United spokesperson K.C. Tyagi told IANS that the possibility of Nitish Kumar campaigning in Gujarat was being discussed within the party.

"The plan will be finalised in a day or two. At the moment, I can neither confirm nor deny whether it will work out," he said.

Tyagi, however, said party chief Sharad Yadav will campaign in Gujarat, and the JD-U was likely to contest 10 of the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

JD-U sources said Nitish Kumar had planned to campaign in Gujarat during the 2012 assembly elections but pulled out at the last minute.

With the JD-U having severed ties with the National Democratic Alliance over Modi's elevation in the Bharatiya Janata Party, Nitish Kumar does not have any constraint of coalition niceties, the sources said.

Modi, who is the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, and Nitish Kumar have taken repeated digs at each other ever since the JD-U came out of NDA.

Modi is contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Vadodara in Gujarat and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.