In a bid to unite the opposition parties of the country against PM Modi's BJP, Bihar State Chief and Janata Dal – United (JD-U) convenor Nitish Kumar is meeting key politicians throughout the country. On Monday, he will meet his West Bengal counterpart and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata and former Uttar Pradesh State Chief and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow.
The meeting will come close on the heels of Kumar’s visit to Delhi earlier this month, when he met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former parliamentarian Rahul Gandhi.
The meeting is seen as a major step to lay the foundation for a grand opposition alliance ahead of the 2024 parliamentary polls.
A meeting of Kumar, Gandhi and Kharge along with several other JD-U and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) politicians was held on April 12. Later, Gandhi described the meeting as a “historic step” toward the Opposition unity and for an “ideological fight”.
Kumar has reiterated on several occasions that to defeat BJP in the upcoming parliamentary elections, the Opposition needs to be united.
Meanwhile, Banerjee is also leaving no stone unturned to unite as many political parties as possible. This is evident from her meeting with Samajwadi Party head Yadav at her residence in Kolkata last month.
Nitish Kumar's Relations with BJP
Kumar ended his alliance with BJP in 2014, after Narendra Modi was announced as the prime ministerial candidate, and joined hands with the arch-rival RJD and Congress to form Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance).
The grand alliance triumphed in the 2015 Bihar state polls, thus making BJP the opposition party in the assembly.
In 2017, Kumar parted ways with the grand alliance as the then-Deputy State Chief Tejashwi Yadav refused to resign from his post following allegations of corruption. In 2020, the JD-U convenor again joined hands with the BJP and continued to be in power till August last year.
After breaking ties with the BJP, Kumar again joined hands with the RJD to form the government in Bihar.