NDA allies to fight Bihar elections under Nitish; decision on next CM after polls: Amit Shah

Patna, Oct 16 (PTI) The NDA allies will fight the Bihar Assembly elections under the leadership of JD-U chief Nitish Kumar and a decision on who will head the next government will be taken by the elected legislators after the polls, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Thursday.

Terming Kumar a very prominent socialist leader in Indian politics, Shah said the JD-U chief's politics has always been anti-Congress, and that he was a prominent leader of the JP movement and fought against the Congress during Emergency.

"We are fighting the elections under the leadership of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is also leading our election campaign," Shah told Aaj Tak in an interview.

The 243-member Bihar Assembly will go to polls in two phases, on November 6 and November 11, and the counting will take place on November 14.

Asked if Kumar will again become the chief minister, Shah said the elected MLAs of the coalition partners will first elect their respective party leaders, who will then sit together and decide as to who will head the next government.

Asked if Kumar will become the chief minister even if the BJP wins more seats than the JD-U, Shah said the saffron party had more MLAs than the JD-U in the outgoing government, yet Kumar became the chief minister.

"When we won more seats (in 2020), Nitish Kumar told us that the BJP should lead the government. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi told him that he should lead the government, and eventually he became the chief minister," Shah said.

The home minister also said that the BJP has full faith in its alliance partners.

"Wherever we received a full majority, be it states or at the Centre, we ran the government in coalition. We have always respected our alliance partners, and we will do so this time as well," he said.

All the NDA partners are in close coordination with each other and because of this, discussions among the parties never get derailed anywhere, he added.

For this reason, he said, the NDA is always the first to decide the number of seats to be contested, announce candidates' names, file nominations, etc.

The BJP, JD-U, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) and the Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) are contesting the Bihar elections together.

According to the agreed formula, the BJP and JD-U will contest 101 seats each, LJP (Ram Vilas) 29 seats, while HAM and RLM will field candidates in six constituencies each.

Shah said the weakness of the opposition can never be the strength of the NDA, which always fights elections on the strength of its popularity and leadership.

The NDA will deliver its best performance ever in the Bihar elections this time, he said.

Asked about the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, Shah said it was not the first time that such an exercise was carried out in the country.

It happened during the time of prime ministers Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru too, he said.

Perhaps Rahul Gandhi was not aware of this, Shah said on the Congress leader's opposition to the SIR exercise.

Asked about RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav's promise that at least one government job will be given to each family if the opposition is voted to power in Bihar, the home minister said approximately Rs 12 lakh crore will be needed to provide jobs to such a large number of people, even though Bihar's budget is around Rs 3.25 lakh crore. "Tejashwi Yadav should also explain from where he would arrange Rs 12 lakh crore. It is a baseless promise, a blatant lie told to the youth of Bihar to win votes," Shah said.

On the issue of illegal immigration in Bihar, Shah said the next NDA government will first detect the infiltrators, delete their names from the voter list, and then deport them.

"This is a definitive agenda of our party," he said. PTI ACB ARI