By Santosh Kumar Pathak
New Delhi, April 30 (IANS) Amid Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar travelling across the country to forge opposition unity to take on the Modi government in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has termed the JD(U) leader’s move as a ploy to stay in headlines.
On one hand Nitish is trying to forge an alliance with the Congress by holding meetings with Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, while on the other hand, he is trying to bring on board Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who is opposed to the grand-old party.
The Bihar Chief Minister is also trying to take on board SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav, who had once fought the elections in alliance with Congress and now claims to not go to polls along with the grand-old party.
Talking to IANS, Sushil Modi, a senior BJP leader who had served as deputy chief minister of Bihar under the previous JD(U)-BJP government in the state, said Nitish talks about opposition unity only to grab the headlines and he will not be able to achieve anything by doing so.
Sushil Modi said there is a strong competition among the opposition leaders to prove who is the tallest, and that is the reason that besides him, Banerjee and BRS chief Chandrasekhar Rao are also involved in such type of campaign.
Forecasting that Nitish’s coalition will be wiped out, Sushil Modi said the JD(U) leader will meet the same fate as faced by Chandrababu Naidu in 2019 Lok Sabha pollls.
Supporters of Nitish are not ready to support RJD leader and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and in the Lok Sabha polls, his votebank will drift towards the BJP.
On opposition’s united front, Sushil Modi said that such type of coalition has been formed twice in the country. For the first time the opposition parties united in 1977 to oppose the Emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. For the second time, the opposition parties led by Jan Morcha founder V. P. Singh had come together to oppose the Bofors scam during the tenure of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. But, today, the situation is entirely different.
Today there is no emergency or any issues like Bofors or any other scam. Moreover, the opposition lacks leaders like J. P. and V.P. Singh.
He said that earlier, when the opposition parties united, at that time, the then government was facing corruption charges, but this time it is just opposite. Today, the opposition parties are facing corruption charges. So, in today’s era, opposition unity is a mirage.
Citing examples of Akhilesh-Mayawati alliance in Uttar Pradesh and Congress-JD(S) alliance in the Karnataka in the Lok Sabha polls, Sushil Modi said first thing is that the a united front of opposition parties is not possible and even if it happens, the results will be like that of Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka polls as the people of the country are with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
There is no question of opposition unity as regional leader of any parties in the opposition are not ready to accept regional leader of other party as their own leader, he said.
–IANS
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