Patna: Confident of an extremely good show in the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar, the Bharatiya Janata Party Legislative Party leader and Leader of Opposition in Vidhan Sabha, Nand Kishore Yadav, claimed that friend-turned-foe Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United (JDU) would be decimated and may even fail to open its account when votes are counted on May 16.
Speaking exclusively to IBNLive at his residence in Patna on Friday, the articulate MLA warned the JDU of the Narendra Modi wave in the state. While admitting that caste dynamics play a very important role in Bihar, Nand Kishore Yadav said that Lok Sabha elections would see all sections of the society voting for the BJP as they wanted a strong government at the Centre.
He squarely blamed Nitish Kumar for the breakup of BJP-JDU alliance. "We tried till the very end to save the alliance. But Nitish Kumar was adamant on going alone. He unilaterally took the decision and this election will show it was a wrong one. He is finished in Bihar," he said.
According to him, Nitish Kumar made a massive miscalculation in believing that Muslims would flock to the JDU, if he made Modi the central point of his campaign. "Mahadalits, extremely backward castes don't vote as a single entity. Muslims want development. They are not going to be swayed by empty rhetorics. Nitish Kumar's strategy has failed and now there is massive upheaval in his party," he said while pointing out that caste equations matter a lot in Bihar and there was nothing wrong in projecting Modi's backward caste status.
"The country has seen 10 years of Congress misrule. People are fed up of corruption, price rise and poor governance. NDA has always provided a very efficient government and our aim is the same this time too. This is an election to vote in a strong and stable government at the Centre. Does Nitish Kumar have a strong alliance to be an alternative? He is trying for a Third Front. Yesterday AIADMK broke its alliance with the Left Front in Tamil Nadu. Now Sharad Yadav is talking about a Fourth Front. All such alternatives have several candidates for the PM post. There is no vision and stability in such fronts," he said.
Dismissing apprehensions that Modi's candidature will alienate the Muslim voter, he said all communities want development and corruption free government and even Muslims would vote for the BJP.
"There have been thousands of riots under Congress rule. In Uttar Pradesh in the last one year 30 riots have taken place but still our rivals always raise the 2002 riots in Gujarat. These parties are just trying to whip up passions to remain relevant. They have nothing positive to offer," he said.
Mocking NDA rivals, he added that most of them would be politically finished while denying that if NDA came to power at the Centre, then it would try to bring down the JDU government.
Instead he claimed that Nitish Kumar's government will fall on its own in a few months due to internal bickering.
The Patna Sahib MLA also denied that some party leaders are upset over the alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party of Upendra Kushwaha, and the number of seats conceded to them.
"Decision to enter into an alliance means seat sharing. Those leaders who were not present at Modi's rally had valid reasons. Despite giving 10 seats to our allies, BJP will contest on 30 seats which is double of what we had fought on in 2009,"he added.
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