KCR with Lalu and Nitish: A South and North call for 'BJPMukt Bharat'

Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao reiterated his 'BJPMukt Bharat' slogan at Patna on Wednesday. He got solid support from Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad. It is being seen as a strong bid to form a united opposition for the 2024 Lokh Sabha election against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Officially, KCR had flown to Patna to provide financial support of Rs. 10 lakhs to the families of Indian soldiers from Bihar who lost their lives in Galwan valley and Rs. Five lakhs to the families of Bihar labourers who died in his state because of a fire in Secundrabad.

KCR has got a good chance to consolidate the opposition in the Hindi belt as Nitish Kumar dumped the Bhartiya Janata Party and resigned as chief minister on August 9 to join hands with Lalu Prasad's RJD which had already an alliance called Grand Alliance (GA) with the Congress and the left parties, particularly CPI (ML). Now Nitish has the support of over 160 MLAs out of the total strength of 243 of the Bihar Assembly. He took oath for the eighth time as chief minister with the help of GA.

Unlike other South leaders, KCR spoke fluent Hindi and communicated his desire to decimate the BJP quite effectively. KCR has already travelled to a few non-NDA-ruled states with the same message. Bihar has become an important addition to that as Nitish Kumar is seen as someone who can give a tough fight to Prime Minister Modi.

Interestingly local BJP leaders too chose to target KCR for his alleged corruption in Telangana. It seems that while BJP is trying hard to give a tough fight to KCR in Telangana, KCR has got a chance to target the BJP outside the state also.

KCR said that they would strengthen his slogan of 'BJPMukt Bharat' with Nitish Kumar who has Lalu's son Tejaswi Yadav as his deputy. He accused the Centre is making policy without consulting the opposition and that the resources that should go to the state are being grabbed by the Centre. He talked about the eight years of PM Modi and said that he had destroyed every sector in the country. He accused that no sector or section has benefited from him.

While he talked about 'BJPMukt Bharat', Nitish Kumar called the opposition unity First Front and not the Third Front. This is considered to be an important development as KCR is supposed to be openly against the Congress party. Though local Congress leaders have tried to mock KCR's bid for the opposition unity, it seems that Nitish and particularly Lalu Prasad will try their best to make some understanding between KCR and the Congress. Analysts say that both Nitish and Lalu will make it a point to state to the Congress party that it is BJP that it needs to fight first, and not KCR.

Nitish has targeted the Centre by saying that it is indulging only in publicity and no constructive work is being done. He praised KCR and said, "You have done great work for Telangana, still, there are people who criticize you. But you should not worry as those who don't work and only indulge in publicity do such criticism."

He also said that the people of Telangana will not leave KCR alone. He talked about KCR's effort for bringing water to every village from the rivers Godavari and Krishna. He compared his own effort in Bihar to bring the water of the river Ganga to different cities like Gaya, Bodhgaya and Rajgir.

Like KCR, Nitish too raised the issues of the state's share in resources. He said, that the monetary share of the states is being decreased. He raised the issue of special status for Bihar and said that Bihar would have developed much more with the status but this was denied to the state.

KCR met Lalu Prasad who expressed his hope that KCR would play an important role to stop the juggernaut of the BJP in 2024. He said the experiment of the Grand Alliance in Bihar would take a broader form. He said that Bihar would put a brake on PM Modi's journey while Mr Rao said that to save the country it is necessary to dislodge the BJP from power.