‘Nitish Has a Visceral Animosity Towards Modi’ - Sankarshan Thakur

Senior journalist Sankarshan Thakur discusses Nitish Kumar’s relationship with Narendra Modi with The Quint.

Photo: Reuters

Incensed at Narendra Modi’s remark about “the problem in his DNA” Bihar CM Nitish Kumar wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister to address what he deemed “an insult to the people of Bihar”. Nitish also took to Twitter to defend the arguments made in his letter.

In an interview to The Quint Sankarshan Thakur, Roving Editor of The Telegraph talks about Nitish Kumar’s relationship with Narendra Modi.

Sankarshan Thakur, who is also the author of A Single Man: The Life and Times of Nitish Kumar has reported on Bihar politics for the better part of three decades.

Based on his extensive personal interactions with the Bihar CM both on and off the record, Thakur says that Nitish’s animosity for Modi goes beyond politics and ideology.

In June 2013, Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) broke ties with BJP, with whom he had formed a government in Bihar, just as Narendra Modi was being projected as the NDA’s Prime Ministerial candidate.