JD(U) Leader Defends Nitish Kumar's Decision to Leave Opposition Alliance

Senior JD(U) leader Ashok Choudhary on Thursday claimed that party supremo Nitish Kumar became disillusioned with the INDIA bloc after then West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee opposed his proposal to make caste census a key agenda of the opposition alliance. Choudhary, a minister in the Bihar government, was responding to questions about Congress leader , in which Kumar has been accused of leaving the opposition alliance on a "feeble excuse". "Facts should be taken into account. It was Nitish Kumar who travelled across the country, including to Odisha and West Bengal, to persuade Naveen Patnaik and Mamata Banerjee to come together to form an anti-BJP front," he said. "It was the same Nitish Kumar who hosted the first meeting of leaders from across the country willing to join hands in Patna. The Congress leadership played no role in the initiative," claimed Choudhary, who had joined the JD(U) about a decade ago after serving as Bihar Congress president. He claimed that disillusionment set in during an INDIA bloc meeting in Mumbai, when Kumar proposed making a caste census a key agenda of the alliance. "But the idea was vehemently opposed by the Trinamool Congress leader (Banerjee). All this is documented and can be verified by anyone interested," he said. Choudhary, however, declined to comment on Gandhi's account of the circumstances that led her to turn down the prime minister's post in 2004, when the Congress-led coalition formed the government. "It is not for me to speak on such an affair. My sole objection is to the charges levelled against Nitish Kumar, and I have expressed my views on that," he said. Kumar stepped down as Bihar chief minister in April this year. (With inputs from PTI)