The Janata Dal (United) has expressed resentment over the portrayal of its president and former Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Congress leader Sonia Gandhi's memoir, news agency Press Trust of India reported.The party said Kumar was the main architect and driving force behind the opposition INDIA bloc, rejecting Gandhi's claim that he had been looking for an opportunity to leave the alliance.JDU national spokesperson Rajeev Ranjan Prasad alleged that Gandhi had presented the episode in her book as part of a strategy to mislead people."The JDU is deeply aggrieved by the way Nitish Kumar has been mentioned in Sonia Gandhi's book in the context of the INDIA bloc. We believe that Nitish Kumar is the architect and driving force behind the INDIA bloc, which is currently being led by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi," he said in a video statement, according to PTI.
In her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, Gandhi has written that Kumar was looking for an opportunity to leave the INDIA bloc and was under the BJP's influence. She also refers to his return to the National Democratic Alliance in early 2024.Prasad claimed that most regional parties were initially reluctant to include the Congress in the opposition alliance and that Kumar had persuaded them to join hands with the party. "The first meeting of the alliance in Patna was subsequently successful," he said.
Prasad said Kumar eventually realised that the INDIA bloc would not work because of the ambitions and regional political interests of the Congress and its allies, as well as their inability to take on the NDA."The role of the Congress and its allies, their ambitions and regional political interests made it clear that they did not have the capacity to take on the National Democratic Alliance. That is why Nitish Kumar left the INDIA bloc," he said.The JDU has maintained that Kumar brought the opposition parties together and later left the INDIA bloc after concluding that the alliance could not effectively challenge the NDA.- Ends