No alliance with Nitish Kumar in future: Bihar BJP's resolution
The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Bihar state executive passed a resolution during a two-day party meeting in Darbhanga district to never align with Nitish Kumar, the incumbent chief minister and leader of Janata Dal (United), again. Bihar BJP's co-in-charge Vinod Tawde said it was the decision of the party's central leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah.
Why does this story matter?
- Kumar is known for being politically promiscuous. In August 2022, he ended the JD(U)'s five-year-old alliance with the BJP in Bihar after a tussle on several issues.
- He then formed the government with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and five other Opposition parties to form a coalition government dubbed Mahagathbandhan or grand alliance, which he earlier abandoned in 2017 to go with the BJP.
Nitish Kumar is a spent force: Sushil Modi
BJP Rajya Sabha MP and Bihar's former deputy CM, Sushil Kumar Modi, called Kumar a "spent force" who betrayed the people's mandate and lost power to "convert votes." He said the resolution would boost the morale of their cadre toward forming a BJP government in Bihar in the future. Reacting to the Bihar BJP's resolution, Kumar said he has nothing to do with it.
Nitish can't win on his own: Sushil Modi
Modi claimed the JD(U) can't win more than 10-15 seats on its own in the next Assembly elections. In the 2020 Bihar polls, JD(U) was restricted to the third position with 43 out of 243 seats. He said if it weren't for PM Narendra Modi campaigning for the JD(U) in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party wouldn't have won more than two seats.
JD(U)'s Upendra Kushwaha claimed some were in touch with BJP
The resolution comes after senior JD(U) leader Upendra Kushwaha recently said that some party leaders were in touch with the BJP, without naming anyone. It was speculated as Kumar's return to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which would reshuffle the state's leadership alignments. So, the BJP passed the resolution to send a clear message to its cadre before the 2024 general elections.
