On his mission to align the Opposition parties to take on the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, senior JD(U) leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday met former Congress president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi.
Nitish also met JD(S) chief HD Kumaraswamy and is believed to have discussed the way forward for reuniting the Janata parivar.
Nitish is scheduled to meet his Delhi’s counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Samajwadi Party chief Akhileash Yadav, leaders from the Left parties, and INLD supremo Om Prakash Chautala on Tuesday to discuss the current political situation in the country and ways to ensure Opposition unity.
The meeting with Rahul was Nitish’s first meeting with the Congress leader after the JD(U) walked out of the NDA in Bihar and formed a Mahagathbandhan Government with the RJD, the Congress and Left parties.
Nitish’s deputy and the major alliance partner RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav had already met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi as well as CPI general secretary Sitaram Yechury and CPIM general secretary D Raja.
Sources said Rahul and Nitish are learnt to have discussed the current political situation in the country and steps to bring the entire Opposition under one umbrella to take on the BJP. The meeting between lasted for about an hour when Nitish was accompanied by Bihar Water Resources Minister Sanjay Kumar Jha.
Congress sources said the Bihar CM expressed his gratitude to Rahul for the grand old party’s support to the new alliance in Bihar. Both leaders also discussed the possibility of bringing like-minded parties together, sources said.
When Nitish had made up his mind to make an exit from the NDA, he first discussed the issue with Sonia and then convinced Lalu Prasad as to why it was significant to keep a pan-India party on board for the Grand Alliance with a future political strategy.
Telangana CM K Chandrasekhara Rao last week called on Nitish in Patna and reportedly talked about floating a possible Third Front.
Nitish, however, is not impressed with the concept of a “Third Front” and is in favour of taking along the Congress.
Nitish is currently heading a seven-party coalition that includes the Congress and the Left. In his pro-Congress stance, he is likely to receive ample support from Lalu who is known to share excellent personal equations with Sonia.
The TMC on its part has decided to maintain a distance from the JD(U) since there has been no official communication to the party from the Mahagathbandan.
Sources in the Mamata Banerjee-led party here said the TMC believes that regional parties should fight and defeat the BJP in their respective regions and not come to Delhi for support.
Besides meeting Pawar and Kejriwal on Tuesday, Nitish is scheduled to meet CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and CPI leader D Raja in Delhi on Tuesday.
When Nitish dumped the BJP last month, Yechury had said the saffron party has got a “taste of its own medicine”, referring to the fall of the Uddhav Thackeray Government in Maharashtra after the saffron party backed Shiv Sena rebels.
Yechury had hit out at Nitish in 2017 when the JD(U) chief had parted ways with the grand alliance, accusing the Bihar Chief Minister of “political opportunism”. CPIM too welcomed the formation of the Mahagathbandhan Government in Bihar during his meeting with Tejashwi last month.
Ahead of Delhi tour for forging Opposition unity, Nitish called on RJD supremo Lalu at his Patna residence. In imagery symbolic of both personal and political equations, the CM and the Deputy CM can be seen in one of the pictures helping a faltering Lalu to climb down a few steps.
