Politicians in Bihar argue about Nitish running in the LS elections from the UP

New rumors that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar may run for the Lok Sabha in neighboring, BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh have the Mahagathbandhan, Bihar’s governing party, and the saffron party, the opposition in Patna, at each other’s throats.

The rumors started when Shravan Kumar, a minister for Bihar who also serves as the JD(U)’s in-charge for Uttar Pradesh, said there were “demands” for the party leader to enter the contest from the neighboring state.

Shravan Kumar had said to a local news outlet, “I was recently in Jaunpur and there are very strong demands that your honorable chief minister consider contesting the Lok Sabha elections from UP.”

At the party headquarters on Thursday, Bijendra Yadav, the most senior member of the cabinet and a former state JD(U) president, told reporters that many other states, besides Uttar Pradesh, wanted the chief minister to run from their respective states. Of course, the leader must make that choice.

There were a lot of rumors that Nitish Kumar could run for office from Phulpur, best known as the seat of Jawaharlal Nehru, soon after he left the NDA last year and vowed to defeat the BJP-led coalition in 2024.

The seat, which includes a sizable portion of Prayagraj, formerly known as Allahabad, has a sizable Kurmi community, to whom Kumar belongs, and is only around 100 kilometers from Varanasi, the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

But Shravan Kumar said, “It goes beyond Phulpur. I had the impression during my recent trip to Uttar Pradesh that our party wanted the CM to run for office in a number of additional seats, including Fatehpur and Pratapgarh. They believe it will generate buzz across the state. Bihar’s JD(U) allies seem to be doing OK.

Shakil Ahmed Khan, the head of the Congress parliamentary party, said, “Why not? We are so close to Uttar Pradesh when someone from Gujarat runs from Varanasi and wins.

Notably, despite the seat’s ties to Nehru and Vijaylaxmi Pandit after his passing, Phulpur has eluded Congress, which last held it in 1984 after riding the wave of Indira Gandhi’s murder.

When asked what he thought of Nitish Kumar running from the state of Uttar Pradesh, RJD spokesperson Shakti Yadav said, “If the people of that state so want, he shall. The fact that our leader is well-liked outside of Bihar is something Bihar should be proud of.

It’s interesting to note that despite Kumar’s denials of any prime ministerial ambitions, the prospect of him playing a “national role” excited not only the JD(U), but also the RJD, which sees it as deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav’s path to the highest office.

The suggestion of Kumar entering UP, which not only elects the Prime Minister to the Lok Sabha and has the most seats, but is also governed by Yogi Adityanath, a rising star in the party, infuriated the BJP, as was to be expected.

Both the head of the BJP’s state unit and the opposition leader in the Bihar legislature, Vijay Kumar Sinha, released strongly worded remarks, stating that Kumar had lost support in his own state and would suffer humiliation if he relocated to the neighboring state.

The two BJP leaders accused Kumar of using “caste arithmetic” in UP, where the JD(U) has never been a major force, in order to score political points with the Patna High Court’s approval of the caste census that his administration had ordered.