No party or leader can defeat Modi: Nitish Kumar on 2019 elections

Patna: Bihar Chief Nitish Kumar who broke ties with the grand secular alliance last week said that no person or political party in the country has the ability to compete with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“There is no political party or a leader who has the ability to compete with Prime Minister Narendra Modi”, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said during a press conference in Patna on Monday.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s reaction on the prime ministerial issue came after he was asked about his national ambition in 2019 general election.

Ruling himself out of the race Kumar said, “Mine is a regional party and is confined to Bihar only and as far as my national ambition is concerned I have already held several key portfolios when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister”.

Interestingly Nitish Kumar had snapped ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after Narendra Modi was nominated as NDA’s prime ministerial candidate in 2013. During the formation of Grand Secular Alliance in 2015, Kumar had said he had joined hands with secular parties like Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress to weaken the communal forces.

Kumar was speaking for the first time after he dumped the grand secular alliance over corruption charges against RJD Chief Lalu Yadav and his son Tejaswi Yadav who was also deputy chief minister in the state government.

Hours after he had snapped ties with the grand secular alliance last week Prime Minister Narendra Modi had congratulated him for “joining the fight against corruption”.

Nitish Kumar also reacted sharply on former Janata Dal (United) (JD (U)) President Sharad Yadav’s Opposition to his decision to form an alliance with NDA.

He said “everyone has different opinion in democracy”, and that the JD (U) was recognized by election commission only for Bihar, “the decision to form an alliance with NDA was taken by the state unit of the party in the interest of Bihar”

He further said that the party will discuss the issue during the national executive meeting on August 19 in Patna. Sharad Yadav is reportedly upset over Nitish Kumar’s alignment with the NDA.

Nitish Kumar said that he had no option but to walk out of the grand secular alliance as remaining in it would have meant compromising with corruption.

On the issue of secularism, Kumar said that he doesn’t need a certificate from any political party or leaders on the issue.

He said that “some political parties have been using secularism to cover their black money and benami properties”.

The Chief Minister further clarified that he tried to save the alliance but Lalu Yadav and his son repeatedly refused to come clean on the corruption charges levelled against them.

“People had started raising questions on the zero tolerance policy of the state government after Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a corruption case against the family including Tejaswi Yadav. I just asked them to give a public clarification but the whole family kept dodging the issue”, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said.