Nitish rules out BJP pact: ‘I would rather die’
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. (PTI)
PATNA: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has ruled out any possibility of an alliance with the BJP and said that he would “accept death but will never join hands with the BJP again”.
He accused the BJP of deliberately levelling charges and implicating Lalu Prasad Yadav in multiple cases and termed his decision to revive his alliance with the party a “mistake”.
“I would rather choose to die than to get into an alliance with the BJP. These are bogus things. The question of returning to the BJP doesn’t arise. Don’t you all know how they implicated him (Tejashwi) and his father in cases”, the chief minister said, pointing at his deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav who was standing at his side.
Mr Nitish Kumar also mocked the BJP for claiming that it would win 36 out of 40 seats in Bihar during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. He said: “They are worried. They will not get anything this time. Earlier our supporters, including Muslims, used to give them votes because we were in an alliance, they should remember all this”.
He sought to remind the BJP of the fewer number of seats it won in 2015 when the BJP and JD(U) fought the Lok Sabha polls separately. He also claimed that the BJP now was very different from what it used to be when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister.
Mr Kumar’s comments come a day after the BJP called him an “unpopular leader” and said that it would not get into an alliance with him in the future.
Earlier, while speaking on the issue, BJP state chief Sanjay Jaiswal said: “We have sought to stamp out rumors among our party cadre about such realignment. Everyone is aware of his nature and tendency to swing like a pendulum. We are not going to be cheated again”.
The BJP leader claimed his party was aiming to win about 35 out of the state’s 40 seats in Lok Sabha polls. He referred to the 2020 results, claiming that the poor performance in the Assembly elections was due to Nitish Kumar’s falling graph and unpopularity.
The BJP lost power in August last year when Nitish Kumar snapped ties with NDA and forged an alliance with the RJD, Congress, and five other Opposition parties in Bihar. The move prompted the BJP to accuse Nitish Kumar of violating the people’s mandate for his national goals.
