Will not join Modi Govt even in future: Nitish

In what could be perceived as an inauspicious beginning, the first seed of discontent has been sown in the BJP-led NDA after JD(U) reiterated that it won’t be part of the Union Government even in future.

“The JD(U) will not join Modi Government even in the coming days,” an anguished Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is also the national president of his party, said after returning from New Delhi.

Nitish angst stems from the fact despite numerous rounds of talks between him and the BJP president Amit Shah, the BJP remained adamant on ‘symbolic representation’ of the JD(U), which essentially meant inducting merely one minister from the JD(U) quota. “We are not unhappy. But at the same time, the BJP will have to differentiate between parties like RPI (which has one MP and one minister in the form of Ramdas Athawale) and the JD(U), which has 16 MPs in Lok Sabha and six MPs in the Rajya Sabha,” said Bihar JD(U) president Bashishtha Narayan Singh.

Nitish, who all along had been praising Modi throughout the Lok Sabha polls, however, had a word of advice for the top BJP leader. “The decisive mandate in Bihar, where the NDA won 39 seats of 40 Lok Sabha constituencies, is a victory of people. No one should have an illusion that it’s a vote for one particular person,” said Nitish, without naming Modi.

Elaborating further why he would not like the JD(U) to join Modi Government even in future, Nitish said, “If we join at some later stage, people might say we did not join earlier as we were angry over just one ministerial berth, and now that we have been offered more berths, we have joined the Government. This won’t send the right message to the electorate. We are always in favour of proportional representation, not ‘symbolic representation’. In the Vajpayee era, it (ministerial representation) was decided prior to Government formation. But then, it was a coalition Government. Today, the present dispensation has a majority on its own,” averred Nitish. He, however, reiterated that he was very much part of the NDA and would always support the Modi Government.