JOIN USWill prepare for 2024, says BJP
Senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party landed in Patna to hold key meetings moments after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in Bihar collapsed as Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) walked out of the government. With an eye on the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP said it will brazen it out and reach out to the people.
Leaders of the party soon went into a huddle. The party’s state unit first met at the residence of deputy chief minister Tarkishore Prasad as soon as news broke out. This was followed by a meeting of senior party leaders, including state unit president Sanjay Jaiswal, union ministers Giriraj Singh, Ashwini Choubey and Nityanand Rai, as well as former union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad, Radha Mohan Singh and Shahnawaz Hussain.
A leader present at the meeting said that the break-up did not come as a surprise to the BJP. “Things had soured in the last few months, and the buzz that the government will break has been going on for a few months,” the leader said.
The consensus, the leader said, was that the BJP will now look towards 2024. The BJP-JD (U) combine won 39 of the 40 seats in Bihar in 2019. “The idea is that we will now work hard, go to each of the constituencies, and expose the corruption of this government within the public,” the leader said.
Some of the issues that were creating a friction was the BJP leaders sending workers to as many as 200 assembly constituencies of the state's 243 constituencies. Suspicions about the BJP trying to wrangle its way within Bihar has been worrying the JD(U) rank and file.
In the 2020 state elections, the JD(U) won 43 seats, while the BJP won 74 seats. The RJD was the single largest party with 75 seats.
Another issue was the allegation that BJP appointed RCP Singh as a union minister without consulting Nitish Kumar. However, former Bihar deputy CM Sushil Modi said that these allegations are baseless.
“It is a lie that BJP had made RCP minister without Nitishji's consent. It is also a lie that the BJP wanted to break the JD(U). BJP will come with a thumping majority in ‘24,” Modi tweeted.
Bihar BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand said that Nitish will find it hard to justify his action in front of the people. “There were some questions raised by Nitish ji in 2017 when he left the RJD alliance; how will he answers those questions now, how will he justify this immoral and illegal alliance with the RJD a political party run by a corrupt family against whom Nitish ji has been fighting since his Samata Party days. The people of Bihar are feeling cheated after their mandate in the 2020 Bihar assembly elections,” he said.