Nitish Kumar is the initiator of the INDIA bloc and his return to the BJP-led NDA will harm his image, senior Congress leader Harish Rawat said on Saturday. He also asserted that if Kumar has any grievances, they will be addressed. «The RJD and all of us are ready to find a solution,» Rawat said.
Kumar had joined hands with the RJD in August 2022 after he severed ties with the BJP. He, thereafter, embarked on a drive to bring together all parties across the country to take on the BJP and that culminated in the formation of opposition bloc INDIA.
Rawat, a former chief minister of Uttarakhand, said, «His (Kumar's) grievances, if any, will be addressed within the alliance.
The RJD and all of us are ready to find a solution. He does not need to make a U-turn and taint his image.»
«I do not want him to commit the mistake of taking the shelter of a party about which he used to say he would rather die than going back to it,» Rawat told PTI, referring to the BJP.
«He (Kumar) was the initiator of the INDIA bloc.
He holds an important position in the bloc. Grievances in a family are normal. But then solutions are also found within it,» the Congress leader said.
To a question on whether the alliance was shaping along expected lines, Rawat said though its constituents are each other's rivals in many states and differences are likely to arise among them, these can be settled.
Citing the example of West Bengal, he said the communist parties, the Congress and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) are rivals in that state but none of them have said they are going out of the alliance.
On West Bengal chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Bannerjee, he said she is the soul of the INDIA bloc and the symbol of struggle.