For the last couple of days, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been meeting with prominent leaders of different states nationwide. The purpose of these meets is to unite the opposition against BJP for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
On these recent meetings of Bihar CM, the poll strategist Prashant Kishore predicted that this exercise of opposition unity would be a total failure and the condition of Nitish Kumar would be like Chandrababu Naidu, ex-Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.
While interacting with media during his Jan Suraj Padyatra, Kishore commented that the Chief Minister is trying to fit into the role of Chandrababu Naidu and will meet the same fate. Naidu tried the same thing of uniting the opposition but failed on his home turf and performed poorly in elections.
He commented with just 42 MLAs, Nitish Kumar is running a ‘handicapped government’ and should worry about his own place in Bihar. The Chief Minister should first decide on the seat allocation with JDU (Janata Dal (United)), RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal) and Congress.
Kishore also pointed out the poor performance of JDU and RJD in previous Lok Sabha elections and doesn’t have its own ground to unite opposition parties.
Notably, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar recently met CM Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi. It would be the second meeting in the last 40 days. Previously he visited NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray. He had also met Bengal’s CM Mamta Banerjee, Jharkhand’s CM Hemant Soren and Odisha’s CM Naveen Patnaik to strengthen opposition unity.
Prashant Kishore never misses any chance to criticise the Bihar Government. On May 23, he took a dig at Nitish Kumar’s Government and allegedly blamed it for strengthing liquor and sand mafias. He said, “Nitish Kumar has been sticking to the chair of CM for the last 17 years, but the liquor mafia and sand mafia under his regime have strengthened”.
In May, while interacting with media in Vaishali during Jan Suraaj Padyatra, he showed concerns about education in Bihar. He pointed out, “…in the last 5-6 years, the entire education system, which has been created on the basis of upgraded schools and employed teachers, has become completely useless. Khichdi is being distributed in schools, and only degrees are being distributed in colleges. Some people believe that the education system has deteriorated because of the quality of teachers, but this is not true in all ways”.
While commenting on the collapsed education system, Kishore stated, “…in Bihar, the education system has collapsed when an educated person like Nitish Kumar is the Chief Minister. Whenever the history of his tenure is written, education will be seen as the biggest blot”.
Previously in January at Gopalganj, he accused the Chief Minister of “shedding all morality” to remain in power. Kishore said, “…his greed for power is such that he is stuck to the chair like a fevicol”. He added, “he wants to remain on the chair by any means, and that’s the reality of Nitish Kumar”.
