“Was down with fever,” says Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on missing INDIA alliance meeting

Patna (Bihar) [India] : Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday said that he had not joined the INDIA bloc meeting as he was indisposed due to fever and would definitely attend the next meeting. He also said that he was in no race for any post in the INDIA alliance.

“I want that work should progress. It was being said in the news that I won’t attend the meeting. This is nonsense, I was down with a fever at that time. Is it possible that I will go not to the meeting? In the next meeting of the alliance, we should chalk out a plan for the future,” said Nitish Kumar.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had called a meeting of the INDIA bloc leaders for Wednesday. Key opposition leaders including Nitish Kumar, Mamata Bannerjee, M K Stalin and Akhilesh Yadav decided to skip the meeting and the India bloc huddle was postponed to the third week of December.

Talking to reporters here today, Bihar Chief Minister said, “There is speculation in the media, but I am not in the race for any post in INDIA bloc; I have no personal interest. We all want to be united like freedom struggle and no one should forget the freedom struggle that was fought together and the future generation should remember it”

He pointed out that Bihar had conducted caste census to understand the status of the poor for special status for the state.

“Whatever is suitable in the interest of our state, we are doing. That is why we did a caste census to understand the status of the poor so we are demanding special status for Bihar,” said Nitish Kumar.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut said that the next meeting of the INDIA bloc could take place between December 16 and 18 and the face of the alliance among several other things will be decided.

“The INDIA alliance meeting was supposed to be held today but some prominent leaders were not available. There is a wedding in Mamata Banerjee’s house, MK Stalin is busy with the relief operation in his flood-hit state, Nitish Kumar is not well, and Akhilesh Yadav is not available, therefore this meeting will be held on 16th or 18th of December. The face etc. everything will be decided in the meeting. We are together and you will see its result in 2024,” Raut said.

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren had informed Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge of his inability to make it to a meeting on Wednesday. “I will be busy here. I spoke to Kharge Ji yesterday, maybe a representative from our side will go” Soren told reporters in Ranchi.

Seat sharing for the Lok Sabha polls, which are just four months away, is likely to be at the top of the agenda for the next INDIA bloc meeting and will be crucial for Congress, particularly as the party lost Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, the Hindi heartland states that send a large number of members to the Parliament.

The first meeting of the joint opposition convened in Patna on June 23 and the second meeting was held in Bengaluru on July 17-18. The third meeting happened in Mumbai during August 31-September 1.

Another Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi also confirmed that the INDIA bloc would convene soon.

“The meeting has been called immediately after the election outcome. Discussions about calling the meeting were going on earlier too. Since the alliance has sitting CMs and they were having trouble in coming to Delhi by dropping everything else they expressed their inability to join the meeting. But there is no problem of any kind. We will rework around the schedule…The meeting will be held at the earliest and within the INDIA alliance we will discuss the upcoming strategies” Chaturvedi said.

The BJP, however, claimed that the INDIA alliance was a flop and only made for photo opportunities.

Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said, “When Kamal Nath had made the remark for Akhilesh Yadav, it had become clear that this alliance is just for photos but not in reality…”
The INDIA alliance had appeared on shaky ground when the Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav accused the Congress of betrayal after the Congress failed to reach a seat-sharing agreement for the Madhya Pradesh election.

The Samajwadi Party has mellowed its stance now, party spokesperson Rajinder Chaudhary said that the results in the assembly polls would strengthen the INDIA bloc.

INDIA or ‘Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance’ is a group of 28 opposition parties, including the Congress. The parties have come together to take on the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which is led by PM Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and prevent it from winning a third straight term at the Centre in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

In the Mumbai meeting, the opposition parties adopted resolutions to collectively contest the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections while announcing that seat-sharing arrangements would be finalized as soon as possible through a spirit of give-and-take.

The theme chosen by the INDIA bloc for the elections is “Judega Bharat, Jeetega India” (India will unite, India will win) to take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government.