NEW DELHI: With the Bihar election a few months away, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is all set to bank on his prohibition poll plank targeting women voters who had fetched him groundswell of support five years ago.On Sunday, Kumar is especially coming to the national capital to attend a meeting for pushing the agenda of prohibition across the country. Representatives of the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Mizoram will also attend the meeting. Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh will preside over the meeting to further the cause of prohibition.
The Bihar Chief Minister is also likely to meet senior JD(U) leaders in the national capital to take stock of the political situations after expelling Prashant Kishor and Pavan Varma from the party. “This meeting in the national capital has been called by prohibition activists from across the country. Nitish Kumar has emerged the top political leaders endorsing the cause of prohibition and strictly enforcing it in Bihar. The people and women, in particular,
have in the past shown support to the prohibition measures in which strict action was taken against erring police personnel also. It will indeed be the key poll plank in Bihar in the Assembly election in October-November,” said a senior JD (U) functionary.Barring a brief period when Jitan Ram Manjhi became the CM, Kumar is in power since 2005 in the politically crucial state.The JD(U) boss will be seeking a fresh mandate in the face of the likelihood of the alliance of the RJD-Congress and other smaller parties. With the JD (U)-BJP combine banking on the upper caste and non-Yadav OBCs, the Bihar elections will be a bipolar contest on the lines of Delhi where the BJP was routed convincingly by the ruling AAP.