Patna, July 5: The BJP is in no rush to welcome Nitish Kumar back to the NDA, the party's Bihar president Nityanand Rai indicated today.
Instead, Rai said at a non-government organisation's programme in which he held an interactive session with youths, the BJP wants the NDA - which has the LJP, the RLSP and HAMS along with the BJP in Bihar - to get majority on its own in the next state Assembly elections, whenever they are held.
One participant at the interactive meet, Nitish Raj, asked Rai why the BJP seemed eager to have an alliance with the Nitish's JDU to form the government in the state.
"BJP is not eager to join anyone in Bihar," Rai replied. "Rather, we believe in forming an NDA government in the state on the basis of our own strength and for that BJP along with its alliance partners will continue to raise issues concerning the people of Bihar."
The Bihar BJP chief's statement comes two days after the chief minister underlined the need of an "alternative agenda" to counter the BJP juggernaut in the country.
The JDU was part of the NDA from 1996 till 2013 when Nitish broke off.
Despite Nitish's declarations that the Grand Alliance in Bihar stands united and his virtually ruling out the possibility of his party going back to the NDA fold, differences among Bihar's ruling coalition constituents has sparked feverish speculation that the chief minister is warming up to his old ally.
At today's event, Rai said that the BJP believed in promoting the cause of youths and wanted them to play a proactive role in the task of nation-building.
Bihar is home to 6.84 crore voters, out of whom around 1.83 crore are less than 30 years of age.
The Bihar BJP's hammer and tongs attack on the state of education can be interpreted as an attempt to gain traction among this young population at a time when the jobs scenario looks bleak across the country.
The party's leaders are also showcasing what they say is the success of Mudra scheme of the central government - loans for would-be entrepreneurs - and declaring that it has helped in a big way in making people self-reliant and thus creating employment opportunities for them and others also.
In Bihar, 18,96,855 beneficiaries have availed Mudra loans worth a total of Rs 11,378.25 crore till March 31 this year.
"The NDA government in the Centre is doing many things for the youth of this country and our state unit is duty-bound to make the youth aware of these schemes," Rai said. "Also, we are here to wage a struggle on their behalf so that the hurdles coming in the way of these benefits due to the inability of the state government can be removed."
