Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, on his first visit to New Delhi after breaking ties with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and returning to the Mahagatbandhan with the Rashtriya Janata Dal, met former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday evening at the latter’s residence.
The Congress is an ally in the Mahagatbandhan, or grand alliance, and has two Ministers in the Bihar Cabinet.
Mr. Kumar’s last meeting with the Congress leadership was with party chief Sonia Gandhi in April 2017, just two months before he broke ties with the RJD over corruption cases against then Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and returned to the NDA midway through the tenure of the Mahagatbandhan government that was elected in 2015.
Monday’s meeting with Mr. Gandhi comes under vastly different circumstances with Mr. Kumar making a renewed effort of stitching together an anti-BJP front ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Patna has been plastered with JD(U) posters projecting Mr. Kumar as a possible candidate to lead such a front, though he has maintained that he is not a contender to be the prime ministerial face of the Opposition. He reiterated his view in Delhi. “The coming together of the Opposition will create a good mahaul (atmosphere). I have no desire and no aspiration to become Prime Minister,” Mr. Kumar told reporters here.
Mr. Kumar, who is on a three-day tour of the national capital, will meet Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal; former Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy; Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D. Raja, Nationalist Congress Party patriarch Sharad Pawar and former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala.
Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao had met Mr. Kumar in Patna last week. According to sources, the Janata Dal(U) wants Mr. Kumar to meet Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Mr. Patnaik, who was in Delhi for the past couple of days, is leaving on Tuesday.
According to the Biju Janata Dal leaders, there is no scope of the two meeting in Delhi.
The Trinamool Congress, meanwhile, is keeping a careful distance. The party leaders insisted that a pre-poll alliance between the Opposition parties is not possible and that every regional force should fight the BJP in their respective States.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Kumar, before leaving for Delhi, met RJD chief Lalu Prasad in Patna. He drove to the official residence of former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi, wife of Mr. Prasad, at 10 Circular Road and was welcomed by Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav. “Yes, we met and discussed some political issues. The meetings between us should be on a regular basis,” Mr. Kumar told presspersons.
During the two-day national executive and council meetings of the JD(U) that concluded on Sunday, Mr. Kumar asserted that if the Opposition parties were to unite, the BJP would be reduced to 50 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The JD(U) would never ally with the BJP again, Mr. Kumar said, terming his decision of July 2017 to return to the NDA a “mistake”.
