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Rallies in Uttar Pradesh are only a precursor to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s build-up on a national scale.
The coming months will witness the Janata Dal (U) president venturing out of his State to other provinces for different political programmes.
Speaking to BusinessLine at an Iftaar party thrown by his senior party colleague and Rajya Sabha MP Sharad Yadav, Nitish said: “I plan to spend at least two days in a month outside the State.”
When asked to clarify whether these political journeys will be confined to poll-bound Uttar Pradesh in the coming months, he said: “There are a lot of requests from across the country. I was first thinking — maybe one day in a month. But now it seems more time is required.”
Liquor ban The first major stop in Nitish’s Bharat bhraman , is, of course, Uttar Pradesh, where he held a rally earlier this week. itself. Promoting a liquor ban, which he claimed had brought down the crime graph in Bihar, Nitish reached out primarily to the women, who have been the biggest supporter of prohibition in Bihar.
He has already addressed two rallies in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi, and plans to hold a convention in the neighbouring Phulpur district on July 16.
JD(U) MP Pavan K Varma later told BusinessLine the Bihar CM is “drawing serious attention” through these political programmes in UP. “There is space for a credible alternative in UP,” he said.
Community programmes On the face of it, the party claims it is not targeting any particular community.
However, the strategy is to wean away the non-Yadav OBCs from the Mulayam Singh-led Samajwadi Party and the non-Jatav Dalits from Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Senior JD(U) leaders said Nitish’s record in governance appeals to the upper castes as well — especially the Brahmins, who wield considerable clout in UP.
But the 2017 UP polls are clearly a short stop for the Bihar CM, who has his sights set on the next Lok Sabha polls. Although political alignments are subject to different variables at different times, Nitish was clearly the star of the show at the “secular” gathering at the Iftaar on Wednesday, where Congress president Sonia Gandhi spent almost the entire evening talking to him.
He has also reached out to ascendant political forces like Delhi CM and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, and even a newcomer like Hardik Patel in Gujarat. The spade work for 2019 has clearly begun in the ‘secular’ camp.
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