Patna. Nitish Kumar never had his own wish to leave Bihar. Just as Lalu Prasad Yadav did not want him to stay away from Bihar, similarly Nitish Kumar also always wanted to remain active in Bihar. Wanted to serve the state only. Even now, when he expressed his desire to go to Rajya Sabha, he reiterated that spirit of service. It is being told that BJP created pressure by citing an ‘incident’ and they finally took this decision. Now only time will tell how they want to maintain their relationship with BJP. For now, to understand the future, know the whole story of his relations with BJP.
After seeing Atal-Advani in the hospital, they came together
‘Nitish Kumar through the eyes of close friends’ – This book has been written by Nitish Kumar’s close friend Uday Kant. Nitish Kumar has read every line of this book, hence no one can be trusted more than this. It is mentioned in this that how Nitish Kumar along with Lalu Prasad used to visit the Prime Minister’s Office in Delhi dressed up. It has also been told how much struggle there was to make Lalu Prasad Yadav the Chief Minister and how he had distanced himself due to many reasons including his name in the fodder scam. There is mention of an incident in this book, when Nitish Kumar came close to BJP for the first time. He tells the story of how Nitish Kumar, who was away from BJP, reached the BJP platform after being influenced by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani.
How Samata Party was formed in 1994, then when did George fall ill?
It is told in the book that during Lalu Raj in Bihar, the atmosphere became so bad that 15 MPs under the leadership of George Fernandes left the then Janata Dal. Out of these, 14 were finally eliminated – Mohd. Yunus Saleem, George Fernandes, Nitish Kumar, Syed Shahabuddin, Abdul Ghafoor, Manjay Lal, Vrushin Patel, Harikishore Singh, Ramnaresh Singh, Mahendra Baitha, Charanjit Yadav, Mohan Singh, Harikewal Singh and Ravi Rai. Of these, all except the last four were from Bihar. This group that broke away from Janata Dal was named Janata Dal (George) and then Samata Party. It is written in the book – “Despite showing immense public support in the 1995 Bihar Assembly elections, only seven out of 310 candidates of Samata Party could win. The deposits of 271 were confiscated. The economic and mental condition of the party was bad. Then George Fernandes fell ill. When Nitish reached the hospital in Mumbai to see him, surprisingly he saw Lal Krishna Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee there, who were friends of George Fernandes. When these two leaders started leaving the hospital, Advani invited him to attend the meeting. After coming back, he told him to attend the meeting with great respect. Pramod Mahajan became close to him in 1996 and the BJP-Samata Party contested the Lok Sabha elections for the second time. Nitish Kumar has close relations with Atal, Advani and Pramod Mahajan as well as Arun Jaitley. Along with Atal ji, Nitish has also installed Jaitley’s statue in Patna.
Why was the figure of 36 for Narendra Modi? Then it got better and worse
Nitish Kumar remained continuously associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party running under the patronage of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He broke down when the BJP declared the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, as its Prime Ministerial candidate despite his alleged guilt for the Gujarat riots. In 2013, as soon as the election preparations began before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Nitish Kumar left the BJP in protest. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, JDU fielded 40 candidates, but when it won only two seats, it took responsibility for the defeat and made Jitan Ram Manjhi the Chief Minister. After this, he fought the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections by forming a grand alliance and returned to the chair. Liquor was banned during this government, after which there was conflict between RJD and JDU. When Sushil Kumar Modi opened new files of scams related to Lalu family and Tejashwi, in 2017 Nitish left the Grand Alliance and became the Chief Minister of NDA.
This was Narendra Modi’s BJP. Was not very comfortable, especially due to the upheavals at the Centre. After the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, there was a tussle regarding participation in the Union Cabinet, although Nitish stuck to his words in the assembly elections. In this election, allegedly at the behest of BJP, Chirag Paswan caused huge loss to Nitish Kumar. Its effect came to the fore in 2022, when Nitish, ignoring the mandate 2020, went back to the Grand Alliance and took oath as CM. As soon as BJP accepted an old demand of Nitish by awarding Bharat Ratna to Karpoori Thakur in January 2024, relations warmed up and Nitish again joined NDA. Till now he is still intact. What lies ahead after being sent to Rajya Sabha also remains to be seen.