Bihar CM Nitish Kumar who couldn’t attend Sonia Gandhi’s lunch party for the opposition leaders due to pre-engagements, will fly to Delhi only a day later to lunch with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
PM Modi is hosting lunch in honour of visiting Mauritian Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth and has invited senior leaders. Kumar’s refusal also hints of opposition unity on the day the Modi government turns 3. In fact, his agreement to visit PM Modi instead sparked political buzz.
The political controversy is further developed as the Congress party tried to gather opposition parties on a common platform to test the ground for a possible alliance of parties to take on the BJP in the 2019 national election when PM Modi will seek a second term.
“Bihar and Mauritius have old emotional relations,” Nitish Kumar explained after a cabinet meeting on Friday.
Following the history of contemporary Indian politics, Kumar and PM Modi have been political rivals for about two decades. And ended his nearly two-decade-long alliance with the BJP over the latter’s ascent in his party.
It is also to be noted that lately, Kumar has supported PM Modi’s administrative stances. When all opposition parties denounced the Prime Minister’s demonetisation move as an improvement that punished the poor; Kumar stood out for his enthusiastic support of the notes ban, agreeing with PM Modi that it would counter black money and corruption.
Additionally, last week, Kumar praised PM Modi ruling himself out of as a Prime Ministerial candidate in 2019. He said he didn’t have the “the aspiration or the ability” adding that “the person in whom people will see potential will become the prime minister. People saw potential in Narendra Modi during the last elections, he has become the PM.”
The likeness has been two ways, as PM Modi on instances has been seen appreciating Kumar’s policies in Bihar, notably, the implementation of an alcohol ban.
