In his fifth political flip-flop in the last decade, Nitish Kumar on Sunday resigned as the Mahagatbandhan Chief Minister of Bihar and joined the NDA led by the Bharatiya Janata Party. Kumar took oath as the chief minister for the 9th time in partnership with the BJP.
With this, Nitish Kumar, who was once called the fulcrum of opposition unity, will also mark an exit from the grand INDIA bloc, a crucial move ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections.
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Soon after Nitish’s blow, which is strongly attributed to the Congress’s failure to take the lead on talks around the seat-sharing arrangement, the grand old party seems to have gotten into the damage control mode.
Owing to the turn of events, the future INDIA bloc, which is considered a brainchild of Nitish Kumar, also seems gloomy. Despite his instrumental role in uniting these opposition parties, the bloc’s failure to recognize Nitish Kumar as a potential candidate for Prime Minister is also considered a reason behind Kumar’s exit.
Here is a timeline of major INDIA events and Nitish Kumar’s role:
August 9, 2022: Nitish Kumar announced that the JDU-BJP alliance was over and formed the Mahagatbandhan government in Bihar with RJD and Congress.
February 2023: Bihar Chief Minister asked Congress leadership to make the formal announcement of Opposition unity as soon as possible to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
April 2023: Kumar set in motion his plans to create a united opposition front against the BJP. Meets Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, and Rahul Gandhi. In the coming months, he met other opposition leaders including Mamata Banerjee, Uddhav Thackeray, and Sharad Pawar among others.
July 18, 2023: More than two dozen Indian opposition parties formed an alliance called “INDIA” to challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections.
September 13, 2023: The first meeting of the INDI Alliance coordination committee was held on Wednesday (13 September 2023) at NCP leader Sharad Pawar’s residence in New Delhi. It was attended by 12 parties.
December 20, 2023: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal proposed that Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge should be projected as the INDIA bloc’s prime ministerial face against PM Modi. However, Kharge turned down the offer, saying let’s win first and this thing will be decided later.
January 13, 2023: The INDIA Bloc proposed the name of Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge as the chairperson of the grouping instead of Nitish Kumar.
January 28, 2023: Nitish Kumar, one of the architects of the INDIA bloc, exits the alliance and joins hands with the BJP-led NDA to form a new government in Bihar.
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