Nitish holds NDA meet for better coordination in run-up to Bihar assembly polls

Patna, Oct 28 (PTI) Aiming for a fifth consecutive term in office, Bihar's longest-serving Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday hosted a meeting of the ruling NDA to ensure "better coordination" in the run-up to state assembly polls due next year.

Leaders of all five NDA partners in the state, BJP, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), Hindustani Awam Morcha and Rashtriya Lok Morcha, besides the JD(U) that Kumar heads, turned up at 1, Anne Marg, the Chief Minister's official residence, on the occasion.

Emerging from the meeting that lasted for over an hour, leaders told journalists that Kumar urged the attendees to ensure that similar interactions be henceforth held regularly in all districts and assembly constituencies.

"The chief minister has vowed to lead the NDA towards another victory in 2025. He has also called for exposing the opposition Mahagathbandhan, stating that he felt cheated by that coalition," State BJP president and minister Dilip Jaiswal said.

Notably, Kumar had walked over to the Mahagathbandhan in August 2022, alleging that the BJP had tried to weaken his party with the help of the then LJP chief Chirag Paswan, now a Union minister who had staged a revolt during the assembly polls of 2020, causing the JD(U)'s tally to crash.

Kumar also played a pivotal role in bringing together, from across the country, parties opposed to the BJP, which led to the formation of the INDIA bloc but grew disillusioned and returned to the NDA in January this year.

His key aide and JD(U) working president Sanjay Kumar Jha said, "The chief minister has thanked the Narendra Modi government at the Centre for its generous assistance to the state. He has urged all leaders present at the meeting to apprise the people, especially youngsters who may not be aware of the state's dismal past, of the great leap the state has taken ever since the NDA came to power." The JD(U)-BJP combine had first achieved power in Bihar in 2005 when it had ended the decade-and-a-half rule of Lalu Prasad's RJD.

NDA leaders emerging after the meeting shared the enthusiasm of the chief minister, now 73 years of age, who called upon the coalition to aim for a tally of "200 plus" in the 243-strong assembly.

Those who attended the meeting included Rashtriya Lok Morcha president Upendra Kushwaha, a Rajya Sabha MP who quit the JD(U) last year alleging that Kumar had capitulated before the RJD, his then ally, by virtually declaring the then Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav as his successor.

Another ally who turned up at the meeting was Union minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha founder Jitan Ram Manjhi, who had quit NDA two years ago expressing solidarity with Kumar but returned last year alleging that the JD(U) supremo was putting pressure for a merger of the party, a move which helped his son Santosh Suman getting re-inducted into the state cabinet in January this year.

NDA leaders remained tight-lipped over the absence, at the meeting, of former Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras, who heads Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party and has been sidelined since the Lok Sabha polls which saw weightage being given to Chirag Paswan, his nephew with whom he has a running feud.

However, Raju Tiwari, who is the state president of Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), assured journalists that the young leader's brinkmanship was a thing of the past and lauded Kumar for "giving a clear signal to cadres of all parties, well in advance of the assembly polls".

Other prominent leaders who attended the meeting were Union ministers Rajiv Ranjan Singh "Lalan" (JDU) and Giriraj Singh (BJP), Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha (both BJP), the BJP's chief whip in the Lok Sabha Sanjay Jaiswal, ministers in the state cabinet and members of the state legislature.

In the Lok Sabha polls held earlier this year, the NDA had notched up 30 out of the 40 seats in Bihar, with the JD(U) and BJP bagging 12 seats each, followed by five won by Chirag Paswan's party while Manjhi made his parliamentary debut at a ripe age. PTI NAC SBN SBN