Nitish Kumar's Opposition Unity Drive Up A Gear From Next Month

One of the top leaders in focus as Opposition struggles to unite for the 2024 Lok Sabha contest against the BJP, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is likely to start a nationwide outreach to other leaders next month.

“I surely will do that… after the (assembly) session is over,” he told reporters in Valmikinagar.

With the BJP in perpetual campaign mode to seek a third term for PM Narendra Modi, and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra' set to conclude later this month, JDU leader Nitish Kumar's outreach will be the second leg of his latest binding drive.

The big election is just about 15 months away.

Photo-ops and discussions with Rahul Gandhi and Bengal's Mamata Banerjee are likely to be on Nitish Kumar's agenda. The Congress and the Trinamool Congress have the most Lok Sabha seats among the Opposition.

Nitish Kumar, who ditched the BJP to re-stitch his alliance with Tejashwi Yadav's RJD and the Congress in August, had gone to Delhi and met a number of Opposition leaders in the weeks immediately after that. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (‘KCR'), who has national ambitions of his own, had also met Nitish Kumar at the time.

Mr Kumar has insisted that he's not in it for himself. “I only want to unite the Opposition,” he's been saying. Not many buy that, given his political flexibility.

In Bihar, there's constant buzz that the 71-year-old might take a shot at Delhi and give most of his Bihar duties — or even the chair — to his much younger deputy, Tejashwi Yadav, 33.

Many of his statements have been interpreted as an impending merger of the JDU into the RJD, though some see in it mere affection. Tejashwi Yadav calls Mr Kumar ‘chacha' (uncle) for being an old associate of his father Lalu Prasad Yadav.

But Nitish Kumar's binding efforts, beyond a merger in Bihar, will need some crafty ego management.

Rahul Gandhi has spoken of his party as a “uniting force” with secular ideals — he has pitched his ‘Unite India March' against what he calls the “hateful ideology” of the BJP and RSS — but regional parties remain key in any united front against the giant force that the BJP now is.