Both Kumar and Naidu were once opposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi but allied with the BJP just before the Lok Sabha elections.
The 2024 Lok Sabha election result on Tuesday is seen as a setback for the BJP which is ahead in 241 out of the total 543 seats, thus failing to reach the 272 majority mark as per the Election Commission trends.
BJP stalwart and the face of the party’s campaign, Narendra Modi, is staring at a narrower victory this time.
The BJP’s current lead (including seats already won) stands at 241 and if this remains unchanged when the final results are out, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Chandrababu Naidu will play the kingmaker.
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Both Kumar and Naidu were once opposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi but allied with the BJP just before the Lok Sabha elections. Kumar’s party JDU and Naidu’s TDP are currently leading in 14 and 16 seats, respectively.
For Modi to return to power, he may want Kumar and Naidu to hang around and not switch their loyalties. Kumar, who has earned himself the moniker of “palturam” (the one who changes sides frequently), was, in fact, the man behind the Opposition’s INDIA bloc.
It was only Nitish Kumar who floated the idea of contesting the Lok Sabha elections 2024 in an alliance and brought Opposition parties together. He, however, ditched the INDIA bloc weeks before the elections but his credentials put the BJP in a tight spot.
Also, Nitish Kumar is known to be an ambitious man and many believe he left the Opposition alliance as they could not agree on making him the national convenor of the INDIA bloc.
Similarly, Chandrababu Naidu is also known to have openly criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past. In 2019, Naidu had allegedly called Modi a “hardcore terrorist” in response to the latter’s “Bhallal Deva” jibe. Bhallal Deva was the name of the character that played the antagonist in the superhit Indian movie ‘Bahubali’.
As Modi, for the first time in decades, fails to lead his party to an absolute majority, it would be interesting to see how he convinces and cajoles Kumar and Naidu to remain in power for another five years.
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