Bihar leader Nagmani meets Amit Shah

PTI, Jul 11, 2023, 5:28 PM IST

BJP leader and Home Minister Amit Shah has met ex-Union minister Nagmani, a leader from Bihar, as the former’s party looks to bolster its ranks to take on the ruling JD(U)-RJD-Congress-Left alliance in the state in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Informing reporters about his meeting with the senior BJP leader, Nagmani said he urged him that the BJP should build a large alliance by accommodating regional leaders to defeat the grand coalition in Bihar.

The state sends 40 MPs to the Lok Sabha and is seen crucial to the fortunes of both alliances in the national polls.

”All big parties are entering into alliances ahead of the polls. I urge him that the BJP should also do it,” Nagmani said, adding he also urged the Union home minister to order a CBI probe into the death of his father Jagdev Prasad, a mass leader who was allegedly killed in a police firing in 1974 while leading a protest march.

The Kushwaha leader has joined and left a number of parties, including the RJD and the JD(U), over the years as his own political stock declined. However, he is believed to have some traction among his community voters in a few pockets, largely due to the legacy of his father Jagdev Prasad.

Nagmani had floated Shoshit Inquilab Party last year.

Kushwaha votes are considered significant in the state’s political calculation as they are the largest backward community after the Yadavs. The BJP recently appointed a community member, Samrat Choudhary, as its Bihar president and has also reached out to Upendra Kushwaha, who has quit the JD(U), to join the National Democratic Alliance.