Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday predicted early Lok Sabha polls, due in 2024. He called for Opposition unity as a priority so that the BJP could be defeated.
Mr. Kumar was speaking to the media at his home town of Nalanda, a day after the Union Government filed a fresh affidavit in the Supreme Court on the ongoing caste-based survey in Bihar, terming its previous affidavit an “inadvertent error”.
The Janata Dal-United (JD-U) supremo reiterated that he had no personal desire to hold any post in the Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) Opposition grouping.
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“Lok Sabha elections can be held any time. It is not necessary that elections would be held as per its schedule. The Central Government can conduct elections anytime. This is the reason I have been stressing upon the unity of the Opposition. All Opposition parties should unite and I am busy with that work itself. I just want to unite everyone,” Mr. Kumar said after inaugurating a newly constructed building of the Nalanda Open University, built at the cost of ₹121 crore, at Badgaon.
“My only work is to unite as many parties as possible. Personally, I don’t aspire for any position or any post,” Mr. Kumar added.
When asked, Mr. Kumar declined to disclose the names of parties that would join the INDIA bloc at its forthcoming Mumbai meeting. “You people [the media] keep watching everything. When the other parties will come to attend the meeting, you will come to know. It would not be right to speak on this before that,” he said.
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While acknowledging the Central Government was “taking extra effort” for the Lok Sabha elections, Mr. Kumar said this did not matter to him. “Let them do whatever they want to do. It doesn’t matter to me. When the election comes, we will do our campaigning,” he said.
On the Central Government withdrawing its affidavit on the caste-based survey in the Supreme Court, Mr. Kumar said it was the Centre’s right to conduct the Census and the Bihar Government was conducting the caste-based survey.
He pointed out that the caste-based survey was being carried out with the consent of all political parties.
“We are collecting information about the economic status so that we can work for the development of any caste and religion. We are doing this in the interest of the State. There is no point in opposing it. We are doing good work, that’s why they are having objections to it,” Mr. Kumar said.
Senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Modi said that by giving a fresh affidavit in the Supreme Court, the Central Government had paved the way for the caste-based survey in Bihar.
Mr. Modi claimed that the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the JD(U) were hoping that the Central Government would oppose the caste-based survey in Bihar, which would give them an opportunity to call the BJP and the Central Government anti-Backward Classes on the pretext of the caste-based survey.
“It is the constitutional right of the Central Government to conduct a Census, but caste socio-economic surveys can also be conducted by the State Governments. The data being collected on 17 points in Bihar with the consent of all the parties, including the BJP, is a survey, not a Census, and the BJP has never been against the caste-based survey,” Mr. Modi said.
