AMN
Soon after announcement of Miera Kumar name as joint opposition candidate for the presidential polls, RJD Chief Lalu Yadav said that he would appeal Bihar chief minister not to do ‘historic blunder’ by not supporting “Bihar daughter”.
We will meet Nitish Kumar and will appeal to him to support Bihar’s daughter,” said Lalu Yadav adding that “We will tell him it is a historic blunder,” said Lalu, because “this is a fight of ideologies”.
He said that he was not upset with Mr Kumar about marching out of the 17-member opposition front formed to combat the election for President and that the perception of their alliance being imperiled are off the mark. “We will not bring down the government,” he said.
Lalu Yadav is Mr Kumar’s partner in running the Bihar government. Yesterday, Mr Kumar said that unlike the rest of the opposition, his party will vote for the BJP’s candidate, Ram Nath Kovind.
The BJP and its allies have won the commitment of enough regional parties to have Mr Kovind elected. But the opposition wants to check the feasibility of integrating as a team for the 2019 general election, and in selecting Meira Kumar it wants to demonstrate it can match wits with the BJP. The choice enabled leaders like Sharad Pawar and Mayawati to remain with the non-BJP front.
Mr Kovind, 71, is a Dalit, which is why Mr Kumar, so dependent on the caste in Bihar, is backing him. Meira Kumar, 72, is a former union minister, the country’s first woman speaker, and the daughter of Jagjivan Ram, a national leader and freedom fighter from Bihar.