Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday said he had no objection to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi becoming the Opposition’s prime ministerial candidate in 2024, but pointed out that it would be better if the decision was taken by all parties together.

Nitish said that his party Janata Dal United (JDU) and other Opposition parties were waiting for the Congress to sit with them and chalk out the course of action. He asserted that together they would win the Lok Sabha elections and rule the country with better development plans for the people.

“There is no problem in Rahul Gandhi being the prime ministerial candidate, but we must first sit together and decide everything. What is the problem with it? More and more parties will come together and work. Everything will be decided when they come together,” Nitish told reporters.

Rahul Gandhi at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi on Saturday. PTI picture

The chief minister said he was waiting for the Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra to get over.

Nitish was reacting to questions on former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath’s remarks that Rahul would be the Opposition’s prime ministerial face in the 2024 general elections, on the sidelines of a function organised to distribute appointment letters to principals, lecturers and assistant professors in government higher secondary schools and training institutes in the state.

Speaking further on the occasion, the Bihar chief minister iterated that he had no wish to be the prime ministerial candidate.

“Many times people talk about me (as the prime ministerial candidate), but I have made it clear several times that I stand nowhere. I neither wish nor am inclined to it. The only thing I wish is for all the parties to come together and march ahead. They will fetch a good number of votes, get a majority, and will rule the country if they do so. We will collectively decide on development plans and take the nation ahead on its basis,” Nitish said.

Nitish split with the NDA in August 2022 and joined the Grand Alliance to form a new government in Bihar. He has also been pitching for a broad-based Opposition unity in the country to take on the BJP in the next Lok Sabha elections.

He met several leaders in September including Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, former Karnataka chief minister and Janata Dal Secular leader H.D. Kumaraswamy, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI general secretary D. Raja, NCP leader Sharad Pawar and Samajwadi Party leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav.

Though all the leaders supported the need for Opposition unity, their response to Nitish’s endeavour was lukewarm as many of them had their own notions about the alliance and its leadership.