Praising ally turned sworn enemy Nitish Kumar has earned Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Shatrughan Sinha a rebuke from his own party.Days after the actor-politician described the Bihar Chief Minister as well qualified for the Prime Minister's post, his senior BJP colleague Yashwant Sinha has asked him to "desist" from such statements."Bihari babu (Shatrughan Sinha) should refrain from making statements at a time relations between both the parties are at an all-time low," said Yashwant Sinha, speaking to reporters at his constituency Hazaribagh in Jharkhand.Another BJP leader was more sarcastic. "The best thing to do with Digvijaya Singh and Shatrughan Sinha is not to respond to what they say. That will in itself be a good punishment for them," said BJP leader Uma Bharati.On Tuesday, Shatrughan Sinha, who is 67, said Nitish Kumar was a fit candidate for the PM's job. "You don't need to have any doctorate for it. He has successfully governed Bihar." Last week, Mr Sinha had also called upon Nitish Kumar, who said the meeting excluded politics and included his health issues specially a fractured toe.Mr Sinha and Mr Kumar share common ground in their apparent aversion to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, widely expected to become the BJP's prime ministerial face.But the bonhomie seems to have upset the BJP after its bitter divorce from Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United (JD-U) in Bihar. The JD-U ended its 17-year alliance with the BJP over the elevation of Narendra Modi as its campaign in charge in June.

Mr Kumar said on Tuesday that there was no question of partnering with the BJP again, even if Mr Modi was dropped as a Prime Ministerial possibility.Mr Modi's detractors outside the BJP accuse him of not doing enough to stop hundreds of Muslims from being killed in the communal violence that rocked his state in 2002. Within his party, the Chief Minister's opponents feel that Mr Modi, hugely popular with party workers, alienates regional parties who have Muslim supporters, greatly diminishing the BJP's chances of forming a coalition strong enough to challenge the incumbent Congress-led UPA.