Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 31: In what the BJP drubbed as the “latest comedy show of opposition unity,” Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, sharing dais with his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar on Wednesday took on the BJP tweaking its slogan of “Congress-mukt Bharat” and said what the country needed now was a “BJP-mukt Bharat (BJP-free India).”
Rao, who has been trying to formulate a non-Congress non-BJP front for several years, reached Patna on Wednesday and met Nitish Kumar and his Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav.
Rao’s meeting with Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav assumed significance amid the ongoing political slugfest between the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) and the BJP in Bihar. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar recently had severed ties with BJP and since then has been projected as Prime Ministerial candidate against PM Narendra Modi in 2024 by his party leaders and workers.
The two leaders launched a joint-attack on the BJP, sharing dais at a function in Patna. Kumar criticised the “excessive prachaar-prasaar” (publicity) and the BJP-led Centre’s alleged lack of sensitivity towards the needs of the states.
The joint opposition front is yet to take off but there was expectation that Kumar might bring to it the necessary momentum. The Bihar Chief Minister, however, made it clear that they have the big picture in mind. “Why Third Front, we are working on the main Front,” Rao said. “All opposition parties should come together and raise the slogan for a BJP-mukt Bharat… We will try to unite all Opposition parties in the country,” added Rao, indicating that he was on board with the idea.
The BJP, still smarting from the break-up with Kumar, has dismissed the get-together. Kumar’s former deputy Sushil Modi, who is now a member of the Rajya Sabha, said it was a “meeting of two daydreamers” who have no standing in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “It was a meeting of two leaders who are losing their base in their respective states and desiring to become Prime Minister of the country,” Modi said. “It has been a latest comedy show of Opposition unity,” he added.
At an event, Rao also pledged financial assistance to the family members of five Galwan valley martyrs and 12 migrant workers from Bihar who were killed in a devastating fire at a scrap godown at Bhoiguda near Hyderabad on March 23. Rao handed cheques of ₹10 lakh each to the next kin of five Army men and ₹5 lakh financial assistance to family members of each of 12 migrant workers from Bihar killed in Hyderabad.
“We are citizens of two great rivers of the country Ganga and Godavari. Godavari is known as Ganga in South India. I wanted to visit Bihar earlier but couldn’t come due to lack of time,” he said. “Now, when got an invitation, I reached here to honour those martyrs and the workers killed in a fire accident in Hyderabad,” said Rao during the programme.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar also addressed the audience at the event held at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat, and praised Rao for his contribution in making Telangana a separate state. “You had been fighting for Telangana as a separate state for long and you make it happen more than others. We all have been witness to it but I wonder how and what some people keep saying something against you,” Kumar said.
“We had been demanding for special status to Bihar but they (BJP) kept refusing it… had it been done, Bihar would have made more development and progress,” Kumar said.
Sources from the ruling party in Bihar, the Janata Dal (United), said the two Chief Ministers also discussed the current political situation of the country. “KCR’s visit to Patna and his meeting with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today is a strong indication that process to recognise Kumar as a possible national leader has begun,” said JD(U) leader and party spokesperson Arvind Nishad.
