We pushed Nitish Kumar back into the arms of NDA

The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) is sort of on life support and has to decide if it is a political bloc or a state-specific coalition, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah said on Saturday, adding that the Opposition will need to be cohesive and take decisions together to challenge the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

- HT Correspondent

At the 23rd Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, Abdullah also spoke about how the Opposition’s indecision pushed Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar into the arms of the NDA, criticised the power structure in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, asserted that Muslim voters can’t be taken for granted, and said that he found out about the recent bomb blast near the Red Fort from the media, and not from the chief minister's official intelligence channels.

“Either we are a bloc in which case decisions should be taken together, or we are not. Look at Bihar, you pushed one constituent out, you chose to exclude him from the seat sharing arrangement. Hypothetically, if tomorrow he were to up and leave, who is at fault?” Abdullah told HT’s national political editor Sunetra Choudhury.

He appeared to be referring to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, which was left out of the seat talks of the Opposition Mahagathbandhan in the recently concluded Bihar polls.

“I believe we pushed Nitish Kumar back into the arms of the NDA. I was sitting in the meeting when it was being discussed that he should be made the convener of the INDIA bloc and we effectively suggested with him sitting in the meeting that another leader would have the power of veto,” he added.