Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is learnt to have lost his temper at the INDIA alliance meeting this evening when representatives of southern ally DMK wanted his comments to be translated. The development left the other participants at the meeting stunned and with questions about what was bothering the leader.
Nitish is learnt to have lost his cool when he was speaking and the DMK leaders present in the meeting requested a translation because they could not understand him. RJD leader Manoj Jha offered to translate Nitish and began doing so.
However, Nitish did not take kindly to the request from the DMK leaders and remarked that the southern leaders should learn Hindi and disown the remnants of colonial culture, meaning the English language. He asked Jha to stop translating. The DMK was represented in the meeting by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin and his party colleague T.R. Baalu.
Nitish is learnt to have looked uneasy in the meeting. There is speculation that he is upset over what is perceived as his downsizing in the alliance despite the fact that he had taken the initiative to bring the opposition parties together and hosted the first meeting of the INDIA alliance in Patna in June this year.
Nitish's party, the JD(U), had in the run up to the meeting described him as being best suited to be the prime ministerial face of the alliance. However, the meeting saw West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal suggest that Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge be the PM face of the alliance in the Lok Sabha elections.
Interestingly, Nitish stayed away from the joint press conference held after the meeting.