PATNA: With Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao giving a call for “BJP Mukt Bharat” just a day before his meeting with Mahagathbandhan leaders in Patna on Wednesday, the chorus to project Bihar CM Nitish Kumar as the opposition’s prime ministerial candidate for 2024 general election, has grown louder.
Rao, popularly known as KCR, and some other leaders of his Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) are arriving Patna on Wednesday morning to meet the Mahagathbandhan leaders including Nitish and deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav.
During his Patna stay, KCR would also hand over cheques of Rs 10 lakh each to the next kin of the five army men from Bihar who martyred in Galwan valley and the cheques of Rs 5 lakh each to those 12 migrant workers from Bihar who were killed in an early morning blaze that swept through a scrap godown at Bhoiguda near Hyderabad on March 23.
KCR’s meeting with Nitish and Tejashwi assumes significance amidst the ongoing political slugfest between the Grand Alliance and BJP in the state. KCR has been advocating a non-Congress, non-BJP federal front at the national level. “Both the chief ministers will discuss the national politics on this occasion,” a press note issued from KCR’s office said.
Bihar’s ruling JD(U) has gone excessively enthusiastic over the KCR-Nitish meeting. “KCR coming to Patna and his political meeting with the Bihar CM is a strong indication that the process to recognise Nitish as possible national leader has begun,” JD(U) spokesperson Arvind Nishad said on Tuesday.
Some senior JD(U) leaders who did not want to be identified right now, told TOI on Tuesday that currently the names of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, KCR and Nitish were being discussed as the opposition’s possible prime ministerial candidate for the 2024 polls against the PM Narendra Modi.
“As the BJP, especially PM Modi, has continuously been harping on the twin issues of ‘dynasty politics’ and ‘corruption’, the prospect of Mamata and KCR is very bleak in the wake of the charges of corruption on the politicians of the TMC and TRS, respectively. Moreover, Mamata and KCR both have promoted members of their close family in the government and the organisation. Nitish comes clean on both the issues,” the JD(U) leaders argued. They also pointed out that PM Modi just a few months back had praised Nitish saying, “Nitish Babu is a true Samajwadi like Ram Manohar Lohia and George Fernandes.
Though Nitish while interacting with media on August 12 categorically said he was not in the PM’s race, senior JD(U) leaders like Upendra Kushwaha have regularly been asserting that the Bihar CM has all qualities and qualifications to become the PM and “he is a PM material.”
“I am not in the PM’s race. I say this with folded hands, I have no such thoughts… My job is to work for everyone. I will make an effort to see that all the opposition parties (across the country) come together and work together. If they do, it will be good…,” Nitish said on August 12.
Contacted over phone, JD(U) national secretary general K C Tyagi told TOI that currently Nitish’s focus is to bring all opposition parties across the country at one platform to give BJP a befitting contest in 2024 polls.
However, BJP’s Sushil Kumar Modi said there would be no positive impact of KCR’s visit to Bihar on Nitish’s attempt to unite opposition parties. “Every chief minister of opposition parties has a dream of becoming the next PM. Mamata, KCR and Nitish have already lost their support base in their respective states. Nitish’s dream of becoming PM is very far, he will not continue as Bihar CM for a long time as RJD boss Lalu Prasad may make his son Tejashwi as the next CM,” Sushil Modi said on Tuesday.
