People Saw Potential In Modi, I Don't Have Ability To Become PM: Nitish Kumar

Patna: Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of Bihar, firmly ruled himself out on Monday as a Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2019 national election, saying he hadn't "the aspiration or the ability". In the same self-deprecating vein, he also slipped in a good word for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a bitter rival with whom he has, in recent months, had a blow-hot-blow-cold relationship.

"The person in whom people will see potential will become the prime minister. People saw potential in Narendra Modi during the last elections, he has become the PM," Mr Kumar, 66, said. He also commented that five years before that, when PM Modi was Gujarat Chief Minister, he was not even "in the frame" for the top post.

To questions on the possibility of him leading a non-BJP alternative, Mr Kumar declared, "I neither have any aspiration nor the ability to become PM."

Mr Kumar's name has been swirling among possible candidates for the top job amid opposition moves to engineer a coalition of non-BJP parties for 2019, when PM Modi seeks a second term. But today, as he emphatically backed out, the Bihar Chief Minister commented, "I am not a fool".

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He said he was being "unnecessarily targeted" with such talk. "We are a small party. If I become the national president of my party, it does not mean that I harbour national aspirations," he said.

Throughout his career, he stressed, he had served people as MP or Union minister and as chief minister. Flanked by his ministers and Janata Dal United colleagues, he said it was difficult to say who would emerge as the man for the top job.

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"It sounds weird... I am not the claimant for the prime minister's post in 2019," he said. "I was given the mandate to run Bihar," he added.

Asked about a grand alliance of non-BJP parties for the national election much like the one in Bihar, he said that it was important for opposition parties to unite. "The candidate for the PM post will come before the people at the right time," he said.