Former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar is considered as one of the top candidates of the opposition for president’s post although a final decision is likely to made on Thursday when Congress chief Sonia Gandhi along with other opposition parties meet in New Delhi.
JD(U)’s senior partner in grand alliance, RJD adopted a guarded stance on Nitish Kumar’s decision to support Kovind stating that it would not have any impact on the health of the grand alliance government in Bihar. The RJD said there was past precedence of parties voting independently in presidential polls.
“Even Shiv Sena being an ally of BJP had supported UPA candidate Pratibha Devi Singh Patil in 2007 presidential polls,” RJD’s national spokesperson Manoj Jha said.
However, the JD(U) stand to side with NDA in the presidential poll has once again brought to fore fissures within the grand alliance and a lack of unity in the opposition ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
In the past few months, Nitish kumar has raised eyebrows and evoked strong reaction from allies including RJD for having supported Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his demonetisation drive, surgical strike and also attending Modi’s lunch with Mauritius Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth and skipping the lunch hosted by Sonia Gandhi to discuss an opposition unity for presidential polls.
The political element of the Kumar’s decision to support Kovind cannot be ignored.
Sources said the JD(U)’s support to Kovind was an astute move by the JD(U) strongman to consolidate his dalit and maha-dalit vote base in Bihar given the fact the 71-year-old NDA pick for president hails from scheduled caste in Uttar Pradesh. Kovind belongs to the Koli caste, one of weakest sections among scheduled caste similar to caste groups defined in maha-Dalit community in Bihar.
