With the split in the ruling coalition in Bihar looking imminent, state NDA convenor Nand Kishore Yadav and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi today refused to meet Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

The JD(U) core committee meeting is underway at the Chief Minister's residence to discuss alliance issues. State JDU President Vashist Narayan Singh and several other top party leaders are attending the meeting.

BJP leader and NDA convenor in the State Nand Kishore Yadav said in Patna that they were called by Nitish Kumar, but this morning they read in a newspaper that he has raised the issue of prime ministership.

Yadav said, national leaders can only speak on this issue and thay are not authorised to discuss it. So, there was no point in meeting the Chief Minister, he added.

His remarks came against the backdrop of a media report that quoted Nitish Kumar as saying that BJP should publicly declare that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi will not be its prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 polls.

While JD(U) came under attack from the ally's Bihar unit, the central BJP leadership has maintained that it wants the alliance in the interest of opposition unity and honouring the people's mandate.