Nitish likely left INDIA bloc fearing Ram temple wave, it proved unfounded: CPI(ML) leader

New Delhi, Jun 21 (PTI) JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar might have left the INDIA bloc out of "fear" that the Ram temple was going to drive a wave in favour of the BJP but this proved to be incorrect, CPI (ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya has said. In an interview with PTI editors at the agency's headquarters, the Left party's leader said Kumar's "fear" was unfounded particularly after seeing the Lok Sabha election results of Uttar Pradesh.

Kumar's Janata Dal (United) was in an alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress-Left 'Mahagathbandhan' grouping in Bihar and a constituent of the opposition INDIA bloc, but jumped to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) just before the 2024 general elections.

"I don't think that we (the bloc) let him go. Nitish Kumar keeps saying 'ab idhar idhar nahi karenge' (I will not change sides anymore). So, he does it of his own volition," Bhattacharya said.

In January, Kumar had ditched the Mahagathbandhan and the INDIA bloc and formed a new government with the BJP, which he had dumped less than 18 months ago. The Bihar chief minister's crossover to the NDA was his fifth in a little over a decade. "Honestly, I don't really know why he left, because he was the chief minister, he is now the chief minister. I think, if somebody says that he was not made the convener. There is no convener of the INDIA bloc till date," Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) Liberation general secretary said.

"Probably, you know, there was an element of fear. Though there was no genuine basis for this fear. After the Ram temple inauguration, a lot of people thought that there was such a wave in this country. So, for him the survival instinct is the most important instinct, and probably that's what he did. But as UP tells us, that was an unfounded fear," he said.

The BJP won 33 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in the 2024 polls, down from 62 in 2019, while INDIA bloc member Samajwadi Party got 37 seats, up from five in 2019.

Bhattacharya also claimed that the JD(U) joining the NDA had in fact benefitted the BJP in Bihar.

"I think the BJP was particularly clear. Without Nitish Kumar, the BJP probably would have been limited to less than 10 seats (in Bihar)," he said.

Both the BJP and the JD(U) won 12 Lok Sabha seats each in the state that sends 40 members to the Lok Sabha.

Asked about viral videos of Kumar touching the feet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a recent NDA meeting and checking the his finger for the indelible ink at the inauguration of the Nalanda University in Bihar on Thursday, the CPI(ML) leader said, "I would rather go by what he (Kumar) said yesterday. So what he said was quite perfect for a Bihar chief minister." "So, there was Narendra Modi who was trying to hog all the limelight and claim all the credit for Nalanda. And, there was Nitish Kumar who was telling him that this is a UPA-era project and so many people before you have actually contributed to it," Bhattacharya said.

"So, in his own way, he was reminding, putting Narendra Modi in his place. Reminding him of the actual chronology, (Union home minister) Amit Shah would call it. So, the chronology of Nalanda he (Kumar) explained," he said.

Bhattacharya, however, added that it is very difficult to say whether Kumar would stick with the NDA.

"Nitish Kumar has done "idhar udhar", as he calls it. It can be actually a part of the Indian political acrobatics. It's very difficult to say. When he does that, why he does that, and when will be the next time that he will do it again," he said. PTI

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