‘My suggestions were accepted’: Nitish Kumar rebuts speculation on Oppn meet

PATNA: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday responded to reports that he skipped the joint press conference addressed by opposition leaders because he was upset with a sharp rebuttal, insisting that it wasn’t correct that his suggestions at the mega meeting were rejected.

“Whatever I suggested was accepted at the Bengaluru meet,” Kumar told reporters in Rajgir in an effort to end the speculation around his absence from the Press conference. Kumar, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Yadav and deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav returned to Patna soon after the Bengaluru meeting on Tuesday without waiting for the Press conference.

“The matter is being unnecessarily dragged,” he added, hours after Janata Dal-United chief Rajiv Ranjan aka Lalan Singh blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for fueling speculation about the opposition meeting.

“The fact is that Narendra Modi’s days are numbered. He should now seek a vote for INDIA and leave the field. The name of the convenor will also be announced in Mumbai. There was no talk on convenor in Bangalore,” Singh said earlier on Wednesday.

Opposition leaders representing 26 political parties on Tuesday formed a pre-poll coalition at a mega meeting in Bengaluru and announced that their grouping will be called INDIA, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, to take on the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Nitish Kumar’s rebuttal comes against the backdrop of reports that he was not convinced that INDIA was the best name for the grouping but went along with the majority view.

Singh did not elaborate on the reasons behind Nitish Kumar’s early return but alluded to Nitish Kumar’s key role in kickstarting the initiative. “The man who initiated the exercise for uniting opposition cannot be upset with small things,” added Singh who had also travelled to Bengaluru for the opposition meeting.