Patna, April 30 (IANS) With Nitish Kumar getting support from opposition leaders, a discussion is underway about who is the better Chanakya in the electoral battle — Amit Shah, Nitish Kumar or Sharad Pawar.
All of them are special in their own way but their ability to formulate poll strategy will be tested during the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
“For now, if we talk in the perspective of Bihar, Nitish Kumar is getting initial success as big leaders of the country are supporting him in his initiative for opposition unity. The role of the Congress party is extremely crucial for opposition unity. Its leaders have to show big hearts and allow regional parties to flourish in their own strongholds. For example, the Congress party had contested the previous West Bengal assembly election and not won a single seat. It has won one seat in a bypoll. Similarly, it contested 403 seats in Uttar Pradesh and won only two seats in the 2022 assembly election. It faces an identical situation in Telangana too,” said Shivanand Tiwari, vice president of the RJD.
“The role of Nitish Kumar as a matchmaker is crucial here. He came up with the ‘one seat one candidate’ formula which was accepted by the Congress party. This was the reason why Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had a conversation with Nitish Kumar followed by a meeting with Rahul Gandhi. The proposal of Nitish Kumar was also accepted by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Uttar Pradesh former CM Akhilesh Yadav. Still, the skills of Nitish Kumar will be tested when he manages to bring all these leaders on one platform. The political path of Nitish Kumar to bring all these leaders on one platform is not easy, followed by a unanimous decision on one seat, one candidate formula and most importantly a positive result in the 2024 Lok Sabha poll,” Tiwari said.
“At this point of time, we cannot say who is the best Chanakya of the country — Amit Shah, Nitish Kumar or Sharad Pawar. All of them are good. Everyone knows how Amit Shah works at the micro level to bring small parties or leaders who are influential in one or two districts, in favour of the BJP to divide the votes of the opposition parties. This is not a big thing, especially for the BJP,” Tiwari said.
“For Nitish Kumar, uniting the opposition parties and converting the support of the people into votes and minimising the division of votes in the Mahagathbandhan will decide how good he will be as the Chanakya of the country,” he said.
“Everyone is talking about how Rahul, Mamata and Akhilesh are supporting the initiatives of Nitish Kumar. I firmly believe that Nitish has his own working style to befriend the leaders of different political parties. When he was the Union railway minister, he never thought of developing one region of the country. He met the demands of every leader from north to south and from east to west. His personal relations with other leaders are very good which is his number one plus point. The other is his clean image. No one could drag him into any case of corruption, not even the BJP. Moreover, the recent moves of the BJP to selectively target leaders of the opposition parties like Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal also forced them and other such leaders to think about unity,” Tiwari added.
–IANS
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