The Bharatiya Janata Party can be defeated in the 2024 general elections if the opposition is united, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said on Sunday at the open session of the national council meeting of the Janata Dal (United).
“Everyone should remain united. If we remain united, we will win maximum seats in 2024. We don’t want a Third Front. Ours will be the main front,” he said.
Kumar’s JD(U) fell out with the BJP in Bihar and formed a government in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress inAugust this year. He has been a trenchant critic of the saffron outfit since then. The BJP was working against the JD(U) despite being in an alliance in the 2020 assembly elections, he said.
“During the assembly elections in 2020, our party won less seats. Despite having an alliance, the ally (BJP) was busy ensuring our defeat,” the JD(U) leader said. “Never before had our party won such a low number of seats in the 2005 or 2010 assembly elections. We suffered in 2020 as they tried to ensure the defeat of our candidates.”
The BJP engineered defections in Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur as well, he accused. “All these made us move out. They will be taught a lesson in the next elections,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}The BJP engineered defections in Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur as well, he accused. “All these made us move out. They will be taught a lesson in the next elections,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}Kumar dismissed the recent loss of his party’s candidate in the Kurhani bypolls as inconsequential. He told party workers that he was not interested in bypoll, “but the other alliance partners wanted us to contest. They (BJP) lost at several places, but a hue and cry is being made over our loss at the by-poll.”
Bihar must be given a special status by the Centre, Kumar reiterated. “Nothing is happening for development of backward states,” he alleged.
Kumar also responded to demands being raised from his political allies to take a re-look at prohibition, making it clear that the state government will not roll back the ban on liquor.
JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh said at the meeting that Kumar’s model of good governance was being adopted by the Centre. “The nation is being hurtled towards authoritarianism. The government at the Centre has done nothing worthwhile in the eight and a half years it has been at the helm,” he said.
Hitting back, BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi said: “Nitish Kumar has lost his popularity and he doesn’t hold the capacity anymore to hold back his base votes. He has also accepted his failure to unite the opposition and he should try for 2029. He cannot bring Kejriwal and AAP Congress together for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh polls. I am sure that the country will not become BJP-mukt (free) but in 2025 Bihar will definitely become JD U mukt in 2025.”