Despite the State Assembly Polls of Bihar legislative assembly being months away, Amit Shah, the chief of the country's ruling BJP on Thursday announced his party would contest the leadership of State chief Nitish Kumar, the chief of Janata Dal (United) party.
The elections are due to be held in October 2020 as per the five-year term of the Bihar State assembly.
Shah, who is also the Home Minister of the country, was addressing a public rally in Bihar when he said: "I want to put rumours to rest by declaring that the next assembly elections in Bihar will be fought under the leadership of Nitish Kumar."
The minister announced the tie-up, saying it is unbreakable, refuting the rumours of a rift between their parties.
The statement came days after Nitish Kumar, an ally of the BJP Government, called the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), an official record of people who qualify as citizens of India, as unjustified and said it would never be implemented in Bihar.
Muslims across India are opposing the NRC and the contentious new Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which allows Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim community members namely Hindus, Christians, Jains, Buddhist, Sikhs, and Parsis from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh arguing that it is "discriminatory" on religious grounds.
Shah also aimed at former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav of the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) by saying that his dream of becoming chief minister again, will remain a dream.
He added that during Lalu's rule, the growth rate was 3 per cent but is currently at 11 per cent under the leadership of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
A dispute was expected among the top leaders of the parties due to their differences over the Citizenship law, passed by the federal government in December.
On Tuesday, however, Nitish Kumar asserted that all was well when he was asked about the alliance between the BJP and the JDU.
