Bhubaneswar: Amid claims that no political talks were held between Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday, Janata Dal (United) said the Bihar Chief Minister has become the leader of opposition unity.
Shortly after Nitish called on Naveen at his residence in Bhubaneswar, JD (U) claimed in a tweet that the Bihar Chief Minister has emerged as the leader of opposition unity. The JD (U) leader visited Odisha and met Naveen Patnaik as he is uniting opposition parties without any personal ambition, it said.
“Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has become the leader of opposition unity; went to Odisha and met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik; uniting opposition parties without personal ambition,” the JD (U) tweeted.
विपक्षी एकता के अगुआ बने मुख्यमंत्री नीतीश कुमार, उड़ीसा जाकर मुख्यमंत्री श्री नवीन पटनायक से की मुलाकात, बिना व्यक्तिगत महत्वाकांक्षा के विपक्षी पार्टियों को कर रहे एकजुट।#JDU #NitishKumar #Bihar #Odisha #VipakshiEkta #Opposition pic.twitter.com/RkM5EV9IcC
— Janata Dal (United) (@Jduonline) May 9, 2023
The luncheon meeting meeting between the two leaders had created a lot of buzz since Nitish is on a mission to unite the opposition and cobble up a grand opposition alliance against the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. This too was seen as a part of the efforts to bring all non-NDA parties together.
However, Naveen told reporters after the meeting that no discussion was held over forming any alliance. “The Odisha government will provide land in Puri free of cost to Bihar so that a Bhavan can be built for devotees coming to offer prayers at Shri Jagannath Temple,” he said.
Nitish said the ties are very old and so strong that no political discussions are required. “My relationship with Biju Babu and Naveen Ji is very old. Due to COVID, we could not meet. No political discussions were held during our meeting today,” the Bihar CM added.
It may be noted that Nitish had last month announced his plan to travel across the country to unite opposition parties after meeting prominent opposition leaders in Delhi, including those from Congress and Left parties. He travelled to Kolkata to meet West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who herself had met Naveen Patnaik in March, and then went to Lucknow to meet Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav. He has already met Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja.
The Bihar CM will be meeting Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray later this week.
