Has ‘Bihar ki beti’ been chosen to lose, asks Nitish on Meira

PATNA: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Friday attacked the UPA allies for adopting ‘a losing strategy’ by projecting former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar as the opposition presidential candidate.

Nitish brushed aside the Congress-led opposition’s criticism against him for supporting NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind instead of Meira Kumar despite her being ‘a Bihar ki Beti (daughter of Bihar)’.

“Bihar ki Beti hain toh harney wali ranniti kyon banaye hain (Why have they made a losing strategy for Bihar’s daughter),” Kumar said, implying that the opposition was only using the former Speaker for a symbolic fight in the contest instead of giving her respect as per her stature.

“I have huge respect for Meira Kumari ji. I ask why didn’t they (Opposition) think of Kumar in previous presidential polls,” he said. Nitish also took potshots at the Congress-led opposition for trying to project the presidential polls as a run-up to the 2019 parliamentary polls.

“If they have started the fight with a losing strategy, everybody knows what will be the outcome. They should adopt a winning strategy so that we win in 2020 in Bihar and in 2022 Meira Kumar gets elected president,” Nitish said. “The presidential polls should be above politics and not made an issue of confrontation. Our party is small and it has always taken independent decisions on presidential polls in the past,” he said.

Replying to questions on Lalu Prasad’s appeal to him to rethink support for the NDA and calling it a ‘historic blunder’, Nitish laughed it off, saying that “the RJD chief talks a lot of things”.

But the JD(U) strongman underlined there was no threat to the Grand Alliance government in Bihar and dragging the presidential poll controversy was not justified.

“We must understand the presidential polls is not a subject of grand alliance in Bihar. Even Congress’ in-charge of Bihar, CP Joshi, had told us that the GA is confined to Bihar only,” Nitish said. He insisted that the so-called Congress-led opposition was a loose alliance where the JD (U) still did not have its place.

Nitish said the JD (U), being a small party, does not have the capability to forge a national alliance like the grand alliance in Bihar.