Virtually threatening a pull out, NDA ally JDU said it would be difficult for it to continue in the alliance after Narendra Modi was anointed as BJP’s campaign committee chief.

Party leader Narendra Singh said the NDA’s Prime Ministerial candidate should be secular and have a clean and progressive image.

He said the party was not commenting on Modi’s elevation as the campaign committee chief, but that the JDU would not compromise on the issue of secularism.

A final decision in this regard will be taken by the JDU on Saturday.

The JDU statement is significant as it comes a day after L K Advani’s decision to take back his resignation.

This is being seen as an attempt by the JDU to pressurize the BJP into not naming Narendra Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate. A similar demand was reportedly made by Advani to the Sangh parivar.

As rift widened between BJP and JDU, Third front talk became louder. West Bengal CM and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who had given a call for a federal front, spoke to her Bihar counterpart on the issue.

Odisha Chief Minister and BJD Chief Naveen Patnaik who has been talking about a federal front for quite some time, did not rule out the possibility of joining such a front.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has hit out at the Centre accusing it of following a policy of “political discrimination” in grant of central assistance even as he made a strong pitch for special category status for his state.

The occasion for this accusation came from the BJD rally organised at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi demanding a special category status for Odisha.

The event is also seen as an effort to mobilise a regional front at the centre.