Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday continued with his efforts to bring together all Opposition parties under one umbrella and met several leaders, including those from the Left, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The JD(U) leader who quit the NDA fold to join the RJD, the Congress and others to lead a grand alliance Government in Bihar last month, also called on INLD supremo OP Chautala and JDS leader HD Kumaraswamy amid speculation that Nitish may also want to bring together Janata parivar to take on the Narendra Modi juggernaut in the 2024 polls.
Soon after the Nitish-Chautala meeting, it was also announced that the Bihar CM and his deputy RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah will attend the INLD’s September 25 rally in Haryana.
Chautala invited Nitish to attend the rally to mark the birthday of former Prime Minister Devi Lal.
Nitish held a meeting with former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi a day earlier.
Asked about his aspirations to become the Prime Minister, Nitish said, “This is wrong. I am not a claimant for the post, nor am I desirous of it.” Nitish has maintained that any Opposition alliance against the BJP must include the Congress and the Left, a contention that is not fully shared by the AAP, Mamata Banerjee’s TMC and K Chandrashekar Rao’s TRS.
KCR was in Patna last week and held talks with Nitish in his effort to galvanise a non-BJP non-Congress front to which Nitish responded calling it has be a main Front. Nitish asserted that his focus is to bring together all Opposition parties. “It is time for the Left parties, the Congress and all regional parties to come together to form a united Opposition,” Nitish told reporters soon after his meeting with CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury.
According to Yechury, Nitish’s return to the Opposition fold and his desire to be part of a fight against the BJP is a great signal for Indian politics. “First, the agenda is to unite all parties, not to decide on the PM candidate. When the time comes we will decide the PM candidate and let you all know,” he said. The JD(U) leader also met CPI general secretary D Raja.
“I have had a long association with the CPI-M from my younger days. You all have not seen me, but whenever I used to come to Delhi, I used to come to this office. Today we are all together again. Our entire focus is to unite all Left parties, the regional parties, the Congress. This will be a big deal if all of us come together,” he said.
In his meeting with Kejriwal, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and JD(U) leader Sanjay Jha were also present, while during the meeting with Mulayam Singh at a hospital where he is bedridden, Akhilesh Yadav was also present.
“Many thanks to Nitish for visiting my residence. Discussion was held on many serious issues related to the country like education, health, ‘operation lotus’, open horse-trading of MLAs to topple popularly elected Governments, and increasing unrestrained corruption, unemployment and corruption for BJP dispensations,” Kejriwal tweeted while attacking the BJP. The meeting between the two leaders lasted for nearly 90 minutes.
Nitish met Chautala at the former CM’s residence in Gurgaon. He was accompanied by JD(U) spokesperson K C Tyagi. Speaking about the meeting, INLD leader Nafe Singh Rathee said the two leaders met “warmly”. Tyagi asserted the Congress and the Left parties are an “essential component” of any non-BJP formation as he noted that his party has authorised Nitish to take required steps to bring together all opposition parties.