New Delhi: Efforts to nominate Nitish Kumar as the prime ministerial candidate for next year’s Lok Sabha elections are intensifying. For this, Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar and Lalu’s youngest son Tejashwi Prasad Yadav is planning to meet opposition leaders including Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K.Stalin.
Since 2014, the BJP-led National Democratic Front government has been ruling at the centre. This was due to the ‘Modi wave’ that swept through then. The BJP continued to rule in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections without unity among the opposition parties to face Narendra Modi who then took over the post of Prime Minister. The reason for this was considered to be the fact that all the opposition parties joined together to oppose Prime Minister Modi and did not nominate one of them as the prime ministerial candidate.
As a result, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is trying to unite the opposition parties in next year’s Lok Sabha elections. The leader of the United Janata Dal has been urging unity with the opposition ever since he quit the BJP alliance.
For this, Chief Minister Nitish was also considered to have an attempt to make himself the prime ministerial candidate of the opposition parties. He was supported by some parties including Lalu’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the leader of his mega alliance.
Meanwhile, Telangana Rashtriya Samithi President and Telangana Chief Minister Chandrasekhara Rao is trying to form an opposition party under his leadership. Along with him, efforts were also started to put forward Rahul Gandhi, the former national president of the Congress, who completed the padayatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir in September last year, for the prime ministerial candidate.
In this case, the attempt to make Chief Minister Nitish himself the prime ministerial candidate has intensified. Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, who is the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar in his coalition government, has come forward for it. Tejashwi, the young leader of the opposition RJD, plans to meet other opposition leaders.
His efforts have intensified in the last few days. First of all, Tejashwi met the national organizer of Aam Aadmi and Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, yesterday. To him, Tejashwi has highlighted the benefit of presenting Nitish as the prime ministerial candidate.
Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi said in his Twitter post, ‘BJP government is selling all public companies. Attempts are being made to hand over the capital of the country to certain corporations. It is important that all of us, the opposition parties, unite to stop this and protect the country” he said.
Before CM Kejriwal, Tejashwi also met Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soran, who is ruled by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. In this way, Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi is going to meet all the opposition parties including DMK leader M.K.Stalin in person. With this, it seems that the young leader Tejaswi has decided to take a prominent place in national politics like his father Lalu.
Regarding this, sources of RJD executives told the ‘Hindu Tamil Vektik’ daily, ‘Due to this effort by Tejashwi, he will be confirmed as the chief ministerial candidate in Bihar’s 2025 assembly elections. Some, including Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress, refuse to accept Rahul as Prime Minister. Thus, it is Tejaswi’s aim to set a policy that is common to all and present Nitish to suit it.’ They said.
Tejaswi’s father and RJD founder Lalu is currently unwell. The animal fodder case convict’s case is in Supreme Court appeal. He fell ill in prison and went to Singapore for a kidney transplant and returned recently. Lalu, the national leader, was on good terms with all party leaders and played an important role in the alliance talks.
Like his father, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi has also started participating in national politics. He personally met Aditya Thackeray, son of Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray, who came to his state and expressed his friendship. He has also met his cousin former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Singh Yadav several times and maintains good relations. Now, for the first time, the DMK leader is preparing to meet party leaders in southern states including Stalin.
