‘My statement was twisted’: Kumar plays down ‘friendship’ with BJP remark
On Thursday, speaking at the convocation ceremony of Mahatma Gandhi Central University in Motihari in east Champaram district, Kumar, while referring to BJP leaders, who were also invited, said: “The friendship and relationship will remain for as long as I am alive”
A couple of days after the “friendship with all leaders” statement at a convocation ceremony at Motihari, which created a furore in political circles, chief minister Nitish Kumar clarified on Saturday and said that his statement “was twisted”.
“My statement has been misrepresented. All talks of my friendship with the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) are meaningless. If this continues, I will not speak to the media,” said Kumar on Saturday on the sidelines of a function organised on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Sri Krishna Singh, the first chief minister of Bihar.
The Janata Dal (United) (JD-U) leader said he was appalled to see the manner in which his speech was reported in the media.
On Thursday, speaking at the convocation ceremony of Mahatma Gandhi Central University in Motihari in east Champaram district, Kumar, while referring to BJP leaders, who were also invited, said: “The friendship and relationship will remain for as long as I am alive”.
He made the remarks in the presence of President Droupadi Murmu, Governor Rajendra Vishwanath, BJP MP Radha Mohan Singh and other leaders.
“All the people who are with us here are our friends. We are different, you are different. Our friendship will never end. As long as I am alive, you will remain connected to me. We respect everyone and we will have respect for all of you. We will continue to serve and respect you all in future also,” Kumar had said in an oblique reference to his ex-BJP colleagues, setting speculation rife if he was gradually inching towards another political realignment.
“I did not talk about friendship with the BJP. I was talking about remembering the work done, but the statement was misinterpreted. I told them about the efforts and pressure put behind getting a central university at Motihari. We created pressure to build a university here. I reminded them that all my yatras began from that region and also alerted them to remember work done by the state government,” he said, and added, “I never said that I am with BJP. I am pained by what has been written or shown,” he added.
Kumar’s ally, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), also played down his comments and said that the Bihar chief minister was speaking of his personal relationships.
Nitish Kumar has broken ties with the BJP twice in the past, once in 2013 and then in 2022. In 2013, he ended a 17-year alliance with the BJP and again in 2022, he walked out of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) alliance to join RJD chief Lalu Prasad.
Aware of the ramifications of the statement on the alliance, the parliamentary affairs minister of JD-U, Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, said on Thursday that unnecessary political implications are being drawn from Kumar’s statement.
Describing the events of the establishment of the Central University, he said that it was approved during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime, but the matter did not move forward.
“Then the work of its establishment was completed during the NDA rule. This was a factual description. Also, when he pointed to the BJP leaders, he said that all of them were together. We had friendship with them, still have friendship with them and will continue to do so in future. This is a statement related to personal relationships,” said Chaudhary.
Deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav also played down Kumar’s remarks and asked reporters to not read much into what the chief minister said. “Everyone meets with everyone, regardless of which political party they belong to,” Yadav said.
The BJP, too, appeared to soften its stance with Bihar unit chief Samrat Choudhary saying that the party didn’t have personal enmity with Kumar. He added, though, that the BJP would continue to oppose Kumar’s politics of appeasement.