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RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has urged Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to use his position as "kingmaker" in the NDA to ensure special status for Bihar.
Yadav's statement comes after photos of him sitting with Kumar on a flight to Delhi went viral on social media. Both NDA and INDIA partners flew to the national capital to hold meetings after the Lok Sabha Election results failed to give a majority to the BJP.
Yadav said that the NDA has the numbers but he wants the government that will be formed to take care of Bihar and ensure that it gets special status. He added that it is a good opportunity for Kumar if he is the kingmaker, and he should make sure that Bihar gets a special status and conduct caste-based census in the entire country.
The photo of the two leaders sparked a buzz of a likely INDIA reconciliation for Kumar who has a record of political flip-flops. Last year, Kumar crisscrossed the country trying to gather support from opposition leaders to form a united bloc to take on the BJP-led NDA.
In one of the viral photos, Yadav was seen sitting behind Kumar on the flight. However, another set of photos clicked some time after, showed the former INDIA allies sitting next to each other, smiling. Yadav said that they greeted each other and he was allotted the seat behind Kumar, but Kumar saw him and called him to sit with him.
As per the results announced by the Election Commission of India, the BJP-led NDA secured 294 seats in the 543-member Parliament -- 22 more than the majority mark of 272 while the INDIA Opposition bloc won 234 seats, falling short by 38 seats.
Now, TDP's Chandrababu Naidu and JDU's Nitish Kumar, both NDA allies, hold the key to the doors to power. While the two contested the general election in an alliance with the BJP, INDIA leaders are learnt to have reached out to them to convince them to join the Opposition bloc.
While Naidu has pledged support to the NDA, Kumar's close aide and JDU leader KC Tyagi told news agency ANI that the party will stay with the BJP alliance.
Source: "He Should Make Sure...": Tejashwi Yadav On Nitish Kumar's Kingmaker Role