Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav after the swearing-in ceremony in Patna.
Patna:
After the latest change in his love-hate relationship with the BJP, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was today asked to compare the era of Atal Bihari Vajpayee with that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “That was a different time when we went with Vajpayee-Yes, There was a lot of love,” he told reporters after taking oath again a day after quitting the BJP and forging an alliance with the RJD and the Congress.
His latest mid-term switch takes oath as Bihar’s chief minister for the eighth time – and for the fourth time in a row since 2015 – as he continues to make political moves while in the chair.
About former Prime Minister Vajpayee, under whom he was a Union minister in the 1990s and early 2000s, Nitish Kumar recalled: “We went with the venerable Atal-Yes Led by George (Fernandes) sir, firm-Yes Gave us a lot of affection, gave us a lot of respect. Can we ever forget that time? He was very different.”
Nitish Kumar held key ministries under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. (file photo)
He did not name PM Modi, with whom he had a very difficult equation, but said, “When we went again (with the BJP), and whatever happened – it saddened our party leaders.”
He also said that the leader he had deputed to deal with the BJP was working for him. his reference was apparently RCP Singh who left JDU Recently after several fights with Nitish Kumar.
Nitish Kumar pulled out of the long alliance with the BJP in 2013 as Narendra Modi became its PM candidate. He had a problem with Mr. Modi’s past, especially the 2002 riots in Gujarat.
He went back to old ally Lalu Prasad Yadav, forged an alliance with the Congress and others; And together they defeated BJP in Bihar in 2015. It was a major defeat for the BJP a year after Narendra Modi became the PM.
Nitish Kumar with Narendra Modi at a recent event in Patna. (file photo)
But, by 2017, Nitish Kumar put aside his problems with PM Modi and joined the BJP. In 2020, the JDU-BJP team won in Bihar. it’s been two years now Nitish Kumar returns to Lalu Yadav’s party and Congress.
Long before all this, Nitish Kumar and his allies had struck a deal with the BJP in the mid-1990s. This was a major rift between the socialists, with Lalu Yadav at the other end standing with the Congress citing secular principles.
In 2015, Nitish Kumar was with Congress’s Sonia Gandhi and RJD’s Lalu Yadav. (file photo)
During Vajpayee’s era, Nitish Kumar had departments like railways, agriculture and road transport. He was also the president of the NDA before the 2013 breakup when Modi came to the centre.