Nitish Kumar’s Prez move exposes rift with RJD
Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) President Nitish Kumar’s outburst on Friday, where he countered the Opposition’s move of fielding Meira Kumar as Presidential nominee against Ram Nath Kovind in a point-by-point rebuttal, has stunned the senior leadership of the Mahagathbandhan into silence.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) or Congress, with whom Kumar runs the grand alliance government in Bihar, may not have expected such a reaction from an ally.
“It was Kumar who talked of Sangh-mukt Bharat and Opposition unity. If he had a winning strategy, he should have shared it earlier instead of flaying his coalition partners,” a senior Bihar Congress leader said on condition of anonymity.
Kumar on Friday said the united Opposition was making its beginning with a losing strategy and had questioned their selection of former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar for the next President of India. “Has Bihar ki beti been chosen to lose?” Kumar questioned, and reiterated that his party would support NDA candidate Kovind in the July 17 Presidential polls.
Neither RJD President Lalu Prasad Yadav nor Bihar Congress chief Ashok Choudhary spoke on the issue on Saturday. Even on Friday, at Yadav’s Iftar party, Kumar and the RJD chief hardly spoke despite sitting next …read more
