Nitish Kumar's U-turn on Sunday shows glaring leadership vacuum against BJP

Patna: Hours after declaring that BJP could be reduced to 50 seats in the next Lok Sabha polls, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said he had not mentioned any numbers.

Since snapping ties with the BJP in the state administration, Nitish Kumar has gone on the offensive against the Saffron party, trying to forge an alliance of Opposition parties.

To the JD( U) national executive meeting held in Patina, he told that the BJP could be reduced to 50 seats if all opposition parties fight together, and he said his goal is to unite the opposition.

Nitish Kumar is heading to Delhi on September 5 to meet political leaders from across parties to line up them against the BJP, according to India Today.

However on Sunday, in the midst of leaders of both his party JDU and BJP started attacking each other, Nitish Kumar retracted from his idea of cornering BJP to 50 seats.

When journalists asked the Bihar chief minister to expand on his comments at the JD(U) meeting, Nitish Kumar said he had not spoken about any number, and added that he would rather focus on building up Opposition, according to India Today.

"My objective is to ensure that all the opposition parties come together and we will achieve success. I don't talk about any number as such", Nitish Kumar was quoted as saying.

But a press release by JDU on Saturday belied Nitish Kumar's evading of his declaration that BJP could be reduced to 50 seats.

The press release that read Nitish Kumar as saying that BJP would not get more than 50 seats in the in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections if all the opposition parties come together and added that " I am trying to achieve this."

Reports say that JD(U) is all set to project Nitish Kumar as the prime ministerial face, which Kumar himself downplayed saying he is working to unite the opposition.

Only a couple of days before Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao visited Nitish Kumar and his deputy and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, calling for "BJP-mukt Bharat".

Rao evaded a question from the press about projecting Nitish Kumar as the opposition's prime ministerial candidate saying it will be decided by opposition parties together.

Nitish Kumar himself appeared annoyed at the question of choosing a consensus candidate for PM from the Opposition.

Chiefs of opposition parties, while claiming to be forming a strong force together against the BJP, appear to be ambitious to project themselves as consensus candidates for prime minster, outwitting each other.