PATNA: Amid speculations over Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s projection as a Prime Ministerial candidate in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, his party Janata Dal-United has issued a big statement saying that ‘he is not in the race to become PM, he is just uniting the opposition.”
The statement was made by JDU national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh who told a news channel that Nitish Kumar is not in the race to become the Prime Minister of the country. The Bihar chief minister is just trying to unite the scattered opposition against the all-powerful BJP led by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.”
The JDU national president said that his party’s stand is very clear on the issue. “Nitish Kumar is only making efforts to bring all mainstream opposition parties on one platform to challenge the BJP.”
Singh added that all the opposition parties will sit together and decide who will be projected as their joint candidate to take on Narendra Modi in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
He called all the speculations surrounding Nitish Kumar ”pure imagination.”
Singh’s statement assumes significance since Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), who visited Bihar recently, avoided giving a direct response to a question about whether Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will run as the opposition`s candidate for Prime Minister.
KCR said that the opposition parties would meet and make that decision in this regard. While talking to the media during his visit to Bihar, KCR was asked whether Bihar CM Nitish Kumar will be the next PM candidate for the opposition. He dodged the straight response and said that all the opposition parties will come together and then finalise the PM candidate.
Later taking a dig at Nitish Kumar, BJP leader Sushil Modi said, “KCR didn`t even accept Nitish Kumar as a PM candidate and outrightly denied it. Nitish Kumar tried to walk out of a presser when they were asked about it though KCR tried to make him sit many times.”
BJP Leader while targeting KCR and Nitish said that those whose own CM seats are not safe are “daydreaming” about being PM. It`s better for KCR to save his CM seat in the upcoming Telangana polls, he added. Rao visited Bihar on Wednesday to meet Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav to discuss national politics.