A day after Bihar Chief Minister’s Nitish Kumar met former Congress president Rahul Gandhi in his bid to “unite” Opposition leaders in the run up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP on Tuesday claimed that his efforts would not bear any fruits as "there is no vacancy” for the Prime Minister’s post and reminded him that many opposition leaders were “already in the queue.”
“Nitishji! Rahul Gandhi ke saath aapki muskurati tasveer TV aur akhbaron mein dekhi. Socha, aapko smaran karaun ki aap toh Dr Ram Manohar Lohia ke shishya hain jo gair Congresswad ke pahle pravartak thay. Aaj kahan chale gaye aap," tweeted Senior BJP leader and former union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in Hindi.
The BJP leader sought to remind the Bihar Chief Minister that he is the disciple of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia who was the first promoter of “anti-Congressism”. Prasad suggested that Nitish was defeating the ideas espoused by Lohia by meeting the Congress leader. Prasad said that efforts of uniting opposition was made in the past met with no success and that there are several claimants to the Prime Minister’s post in the opposition camp and he being only one of them in the queue.
"What you are doing today — knocking on every door —is not new. Many did the same before you but with no result. There is no vacancy for the prime minister's post. But many opposition leaders are already in the queue. You too stand," Prasad said.
"Had Nitish Kumar been proactive in developing Bihar like he is for his personal ambition, many Bihari youth would have got employment opportunity," the former Minister took a swipe in yet another of his tweet.
BJP’s Rajya Sabha member and former deputy-chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi also described Nitish's visit to the National Capital as “political tourism”.
BJP and JDU are locked in a war words over several political issues following JDU’s sudden exit from the BJP-led -National Democratic alliance, last month, and Nitish forming a new coalition government with RJD, Congress and other parties in Bihar.