Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday categorically ruled out the possibility of realigning with former ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying “I will prefer to die rather than tying up with BJP”.
The CM was responding to queries from reporters on the BJP decision, taken at its state executive committee meeting that concluded in Darbhanga on Sunday, which ruled out any realignment with his Kumar’s party Janata Dal (United) in the future and called him “a liability”.
“Mar jaana qabool hai lekin unke saath jaana humko kabhi qabool nahin hai, yah yaad rakhiye) (I will rather die than join hands with them, do remember this),” he said in Patna on the sidelines of a function organised on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary.
Kumar also predicted a rout for BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and laughed off BJP’s comment that “Nitish Kumar has become a liability”.
“Such statements reflect the sense of desperation in rank and files of BJP. Go and find out from people wherever I am going. They (BJP) are worried they won’t get any seat,” he said, dismissing BJP’s quest to win 36 out of 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar as a “dream”.
Kumar, Bihar’s longest-serving CM who has ruled the state in alliance with BJP for the most part of his stint so far, also reminded the former ally of the stupendous success it shared under his leadership at the hustings, including the 2010 assembly polls when the saffron party had won 91 seats, its best performance in the state so far.
The JD(U) supremo, who pulled the plug on alliance with the BJP in August last year and formed a government along with RJD and other parties, claimed the saffron party used to get even the votes of Muslims who felt secure enough under his leadership to temporarily shun their wariness of Hindutva.
Kumar also said that after having snapped ties with BJP in 2013, when Narendra Modi took centre stage, he committed a “mistake” by realigning with the saffron party in 2017.
Turning towards his deputy C Tejashwi Yadav, he said, “So many cases have been lodged against his father (RJD supremo Lalu Prasad). Nothing came of it. They (BJP) put pressure on me to join hands again. Now they are trying to frame these people again in other cases.”
“I was reluctant to become the CM in 2020 when our party won fewer seats than them, thanks to their inability to transfer their votes to us. Our voters supported them which helped them perform better. They put pressure on me to take charge again. But in my party, resentment was growing towards their questionable role in the polls and I took the decision to part ways,” the JD(U) leader said.
Kumar, who has often been called a “habitual betrayer” by BJP, also claimed that even at the peak of the success of their alliance, the saffron party had not been fair towards the JD(U).
“In 2010 assembly polls, at five or six places they had got parties like the JMM, which has the same poll symbol as ours, to contest so that our voters get confused. This cost us five or six seats,” he alleged.
Notably, the 2010 elections also saw JD(U) putting up its best-ever performance, with a tally of more than 110 in the 243-member assembly, though its strike rate was slightly lower than that of BJP, a fact often mentioned by the saffron party to underscore that its footprint in Bihar has been growing.
Without naming any leader, Kumar lashed out at the current ruling dispensation at the Centre for “excessive propaganda” (prachaar-prasaar), renaming of places and doing away with long-established practices like a separate budget for railways, a portfolio he had held in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
In 2005, when Nitish Kumar came to power in Bihar, JD(U) had won 88 seats and BJP 55. In 2010, JD(U) won 115 seats, against BJP’s 91.
In 2020, JD (U) won 43 seats while the BJP tally went up to 74.
Meanwhile, leader of opposition in Bihar Legislative Council, Samrat Chaudhary, dismissed Kumar’s prediction that the BJP will be routed in the 2024 parliamentary polls.
“The people of the state have rejected him. It’s the BJP which nursed him. Nitish Kumar has now become irrelevant in Bihar after losing political credibility,” he said.
