Eye on 2019: Nitish Kumar set to target Modi in Gujarat
Nitish Kumar is due to address at least three rallies in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat in the third week of March.
New Delhi: Despite their apparent bonhomie, JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar, with an eye on the 2019 general election, is trying hard to bring together all anti-Narendra Modi forces on a common platform. The Bihar chief minister, in a bid to project himself as the face of an anti-Modi platform, has decided to take the battle to Prime Minister Modi’s home turf Gujarat, tying up with Hardik Patel’s Patidar Navnirman Sena.
Mr Kumar is due to address at least three rallies in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat in the third week of March just after the results of the crucial five-state Assembly elections are out. The two leaders have decided to take forward their cooperation at the national level too. Akhilesh Katiyar, a close associate of the Patel leader, has joined as national general secretary of the JD(U), a senior party leader said.
Mr Katiyar, who was a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Patel Navnirman Sena (ABPNS), had organised Mr Nitish Kumar’s rally in Varanasi and adjoining areas in the past one year.
Mr Katiyar, who belongs to Kanpur Dehat in UP, has also been appointed the JD(U) in-charge in BJP-ruled Gujarat and Rajasthan, and will be instrumental in organising Mr Kumar’s rallies in Gujarat.
He was earlier general secretary of NDA ally Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP), but was sacked from the party in September 2015 after he organised a meeting of Hardik Patel in Delhi. Mr Katiyar had accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP of exerting pressure on RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha to expel him. Mr Kushwaha is minister of state for HRD in the Modi government.
Mr Patel, the young Patidar leader from Gujarat who has been at loggerheads with the BJP government in the state demanding the inclusion of his caste in the OBC list, had extended support to Mr Kumar in the 2015 Assembly elections. He had said the Bihar chief minister was from his community. “We have to support someone in the (Assembly elections)... We will support someone from our community,” he said.
Mr Patel had taken on the BJP government in Gujarat single-handedly over his demand that Patels be included in the OBC quota.
Earlier, Mr Kumar had supported Prime Minister Modi’s demonetisation drive, giving hints of an apparent bonhomie between the BJP and the JD(U).