Nitish Kumar: The 2005 man stitched to fate of Bihar
Photo credit Twitter Bihar CMO
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, August 8: Since 2005, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been tied to the fate of the state. He is an engine that has given Bihar a snail’s pace on the path of progress.
If Kumar loses power, there will not be much of regrets, barring some from his caste constituency.
If he survives, Bihar will remain in an era that has been made history by most of the states in the country.
The outcome of the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections had written the fate of the BJP-JD (U) alliance underlined by nightmarish phobia for Kumar that he would soon be made irrelevant by the saffron outfit.
Now, the writing on the wall is clear in Patna. Days of the BJP-JD (U) alliance are numbered, and there may not be too many days for the ruling dispensation to survive.
The BJP’s art of engineering defections from rival parties never found any headway in the state known for the politics of social justice.
The BJP’s two deputy chief ministers – Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi – always made it evident that the saffron outfit wasn’t serious about projecting leadership that would have given any decisive direction to the state government led by Kumar.
Kumar has been in an alliance with the BJP by always keeping his option open to welcome back Tejaswi Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal to power.
The JD (U) was never convinced that the bid of Chirag Paswan to weave an anti-Nitish Kumar wave in Bihar was without the blessings of the BJP.
The subsequent annihilation of Paswan, with his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras, gave a never-ending fear to the chief minister that he too can face similar fate.
RCP Singh, the man-Friday of the chief minister for several decades, had seemingly been won over by the BJP.
The BJP’s decision to hold an all Morcha meeting in the Bihar capital without any immediate reason to warrant holding such a show of strength appears to be the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back.
If Kumar does business again with the RJD, he would be presiding over a formidable social base that could blank out the BJP in the next elections. Barring a minuscule OBC vote base and a fraction of the scheduled castes, the BJP will be left with an upper castes constituency, which will not be enough for the saffron outfit to even repeat the 2020 performance.
That prospect may pull down the flight of the BJP leaders in the state to strike a compromise with the JD (U) with a loss of face.
Such a possibility would leave Bihar with a status quoist government, since Kumar’s spark of governance had died with the completion of his first term in 2010, and afterwards he reaps the benefits by showing the ghosts of the ‘jungle raj’ of the 1990s to the people.
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