Nitish Kumar absent from NITI Aayog meeting; not for the first time Bihar Chief Minister absent, says JD(U) | Latest News India

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, a key ally of the ruling BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), skipped Saturday’s NITI Aayog meeting in Delhi chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While the reason for Kumar’s absence from the key programme could not be ascertained yet, the state was represented by two deputy chief ministers and BJP leaders, Samrat Chaudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha.

A spokesperson for Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), however, pointed out that this was not the first time that the prime minister would not attend a meeting of NITI Aayog, the central government’s premier public policy think tank.

“The CM was not present in the meeting earlier and Bihar was represented by the then deputy CM. This time too, two deputies went to the meeting. Besides, there are four members from the state who are members of the Aayog and were present,” JD(U) spokesperson Neeraj Kumar told PTI.

With 12 seats in the Lok Sabha (out of NDA’s 293), the JD(U), along with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP; 16 seats) are extremely important to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In this year’s general elections, the BJP won 240 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha and formed the Centre for the third time in a row, with Prime Minister Modi also achieving a hat-trick of prime ministerial terms.

However, unlike in the previous two terms, the saffron party failed to secure a majority, losing 32 seats. Hence, it needs the support of both the JD(U) and the TDP to stay in power.

Nitish Kumar is known to have changed sides many times. In the latest case, he left the Mahagathbandhan and he rejoined BJP-led coalition in January ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, after leaving NDA to join Mahagathbandhan in August 2022.

Meanwhile, TDP chief Naidu, attended NITI Aayog programme in the national capital.

Chief ministers of states ruled by the opposition Congress-led INDIA bloc “boycotted” the conference, alleging that the NDA government was “ignoring” non-NDA states and “favouring” Andhra Pradesh and Bihar in the Union Budget presented on July 23.

Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal, the only INDIA bloc chief minister at the programme, walked out of the event. The Trinamool Congress chief claimed she was allowed to speak for “only five minutes”.

(With PTI inputs)