‘Nitish Kumar will remain Bihar CM after polls... no confusion in alliance’

PATNA: Bihar deputy chief minister Samrat Choudhary categorically maintains that Nitish Kumar will remain chief minister if the NDA returns to power after the upcoming assembly polls.

- { HT INTERVIEW } SAMRAT CHOUDHARY, BJP LEADER

The BJP leader, who is in the poll fray after a long gap from Tarapur seat in Munger district, speaks on a range of poll-related issues in an interview to Vijay Swaroop. Edited excerpts:

When will the NDA release its manifesto?

This will be before November 4. We are in talks with our alliance partners. And it will be released once all things have been discussed and approved by all our allies. We have also been talking to our allies to coordinate on our blueprint for the next five years. We have to work more for empowerment of youth and women, and to get investment, among other things

The Opposition alliance has been attacking the NDA on the name of CM. Why is it so that the BJP and its allies are not openly announcing the name instead of saying the NDA is contesting polls under Nitish Kumar?

We are very clear on this issue. There is no vacancy for CM post in Bihar and the NDA. Nitish Kumar is the Bihar CM and he will be the Bihar CM in future as well. Let me clarify that in 2000 and 2020, Nitish Kumar had himself refused to become the CM but even then the BJP offered him the CM post. There is no confusion in the alliance over the name of Nitish Kumar... there is no need to talk on this regularly.