‘Don’t wish to become PM’: Nitish Kumar after meeting Akhilesh Yadav on Opposition unity

Bihar chief minster Nitish Kumar said he doesn’t wish to become the Prime Minister and rather wants to ‘work for the interest of the country’. The Bihar CM and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav on Monday met former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav in efforts to forge Opposition unity against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Kumar addressed the media after holding a closed-door meeting, and said talks are on to bring more opposition parties together to take on the right-wing party. “I do not have lust for power and position, my endeavour is to work for the interest of the country,” the chief minister said refuting claims of being the next prime ministerial candidate.

On the decision of who will lead the joint force, the Bihar CM said it will be decided after the unity is formed. “I don’t want anything for myself. I will work in the interest of the country. There will be other people as well, and we will sit and decide,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party chief extended his support to Nitish Kumar to uproot the incumbent BJP government from the country. “They (BJP) want to change the history of India. They must know the history. They are not doing any work but just publicising. We are going to mobilise most of the opposition parties in coalition and fight the upcoming elections,” he said at a press conference.

Nitish Kumar has ramped up his ‘campaign’ to remove BJP from power in the next general election. The meeting comes days after Nitish Kumar had met Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in the capital. Earlier, he held talks with West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, where the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo demanded ‘BJP to become zero’. “We will go ahead together. We have no personal ego, we want to work together collectively,” she said.