Discussions started on next meeting of INDIA bloc: Tejashwi

PATNA: Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday said that discussions were on among leaders of the INDIA bloc on the next meeting of the coalition, where some key decisions were expected.

Yadav was approached with queries here by journalists who wanted his take on reports in a section of the media that a meeting was likely to be held in the virtual mode.

The young RJD leader, who along with his father and party president Lalu Prasad, has been present at all meetings of the newly-formed coalition held so far, said, "There are discussions with regard to the date and the modalities. It will be made known to all when a headway is made.".

One of the key decisions expected at the meeting is defining the role of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the JD(U) president, who had junked the BJP around two years ago vowing to defeat the NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls by bringing the opposition together.

The longest-serving chief minister of Bihar has been maintaining that he was past all “personal ambitions”, though his detractors claim that he had felt slighted when, at the last meeting of the INDIA bloc in Delhi on December 19, a couple of leaders proposed that the octogenarian Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge be declared the Prime Ministerial candidate.

Kumar later told reporters that he had no objections to the proposal regarding Kharge, who, however, backed down saying such a decision should be put on hold and the focus should be on winning enough seats to form the next government.

Kumar, who is in his early 70s, took over as the national president of the JD(U) a week after the INDIA meet, in an indication that he would be approaching the Lok Sabha polls with a lot of fire in his belly.

Riding high on the prospects of a "second Mandal wave", following the caste survey conducted by his government and the subsequent hike in quotas for the deprived social groups, Kumar seems intent on replicating the experiment nationally by pressing the demand for a country-wide caste census.

To this end, he is likely to address a rally in adjoining Jharkhand, which was carved out of Bihar in 2000, in his first public outreach outside his own state in recent times.

In the last couple of days, there has been a strong buzz that the INDIA coalition may agree to make Kumar the 'convener' and settle for the designation of 'chairman' for Kharge.

Kumar, who insists that he considers a formal designation a trifle, however, has been vocal in his criticism of the pace at which things were progressing in the opposition coalition and stressing the need for finalising seat-sharing arrangements "at the earliest, without wasting much time".

Meanwhile, the BJP which has an axe to grind against Kumar who stripped it of power in August 2022, claimed that the JD(U) leader was being taken for a ride.

BJP OBC Morcha national spokesperson Nikhil Anand said in a statement: "By making him the convener, the RJD, with the help of old ally Congress, is plotting to compel Nitish Kumar to give up the Chief Minister’s chair and make way for Tejashwi".