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In a hardening of posture, president of the Samata Party's state unit Ramesh Singh Munda said his party may consider pulling out of the alliance if the BJP did not withdraw its nominee Abhay Kant Prasad for the May 30 election to the Rajya Sabha seat against Samata aspirant Raj Kishore Mahato.
Munda, who is one of the five Samata ministers who quit the Babulal Marandi cabinet on the issue, said the coalition in the state might fall apart if BJP failed to pull out of the race for the RS seat.
He, however, said a final decision on the issue would be taken by the party's central leadership on whose directive the party's representatives in the Marandi ministry resigned.
Senior Samata leader Shravan Kumar, who is in charge of the party's Jharkhand affairs, said after the resignation of Samata ministers the ball was now in the court of the BJP, which 'has to decide whether to maintain cohesion in the NDA or let things get out of hand'.
If Samata pulls the rug, the Marandi ministry will be reduced to a minority.
The BJP-led combine's present strength in the 81-member state assembly is now 45. But if the Samata pulls out, the government will be reduced to minority with 40 members, one short of a majority.
However, another senior Samata leader and Union Railway Minister Nitish Kumar told reporters in Patna that his party was 'not in a hurry to withdraw support to the Marandi government'.
Nitish Kumar, however, blamed the BJP for the present standoff saying the Samata was the natural claimant for the seat, which fell vacant due to the death of the party MP Dayanand Sahay.
Brushing aside the Samata's contention, BJP spokesman Sunil Shastri told reporters in New Delhi that Sahay was not a Samata activist but an independent.
Kumar said his party would not withdraw from the contest and Shastri too maintained that the BJP would remain in the fray.
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