Interview Times 
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is expected to be in Delhi next week for meetings with leaders of different political parties before his travels to other parts of the country for the first time since he ended his alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and fuelled speculation about his larger national role.
People aware of the matter said that Kumar is set to “launch himself” ahead of the 2024 national polls after a key meeting of his Janata Dal (United) or JD (U) in Patna.
“A lot of leaders cutting across party lines want to meet him and discuss a strategy. He is a leader who has shown BJP is beatable with an emphatic victory in 2015 in Bihar…in 2022, he left BJP with no [major] allies. He will now work to isolate the BJP and expose its lies by working to bring all the regional parties under one umbrella as all of them are at BJP’s receiving end,” said a person, who did not want to be named.
JD (U) contested the 2015 Bihar polls in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) before quitting it two years later to head the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
JD (U) posters and hoardings signalling Kumar’s national role have started coming up in Patna. “Aagaz hua, badlaw hoga; pradesh me dikha, desh me dikhega [there has been a start; there will be change. What is visible in the state will be visible in the country also],” read the posters.
The BJP lost power in Bihar after JD (U) quit the NDA and formed the government with the help of RJD, Congress, and Left parties last month.
JD (U) leader KC Tyagi said they are having a meeting of the party’s office bearers from across the country in Patna to deliberate on their agenda. The party is expected to endorse Kumar’s role in spearheading the campaign for a strong alliance to take on the BJP in the 2024 polls.
Another JD (U) leader said Kumar’s meeting with Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, who is popularly known as KCR, in Patna this week was very fruitful in preparing a road map for the larger alliance. He said they agreed it was time to start working in that direction. KCR also met RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Kumar has maintained his main focus would be on building an alliance of regional parties.
JD (U) leader Rajiv Ranjan said the efforts for a stronger alliance will gather momentum after their national executive meeting this week.
JD (U) leaders insist Kumar is the most competent for the country’s top job and RJD, too, has been backing it. “Nitish Kumar has everything to make a competent Prime Minister. He has the experience, administrative acumen, and inclusive development model suited to India. He has demonstrated it in Bihar to remain the only choice as chief minister for the last 18 years. But he has himself said that his priority is not to become a Prime Ministerial candidate but to give India a new Prime Minister,” said JD (U) spokesman Neeraj Kumar.
