Upendra Kushwaha ‘fox of Bihar’ politics turns restless
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, January 23: The Janata Dal (United) leader Upendra Kushwaha was a Union Minister in the first term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-headed National Democratic Alliance. With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) asserting a domineering role in the company of the erstwhile ally JD (U), Kushwaha drifted from the NDA and since then he has been politically adrift in the high waters of the Bihar politics.
Among the dominant castes, which are electorally assertive, Kurmi and Koeri communities have for a long time been yearning for distinct political identity. The two castes are spread over the whole of the state, and essentially play the roles to add value to the electoral constituency of the political parties with their strategic voting.
Kushwaha nursed the dream to become Chief Minister of Bihar one day, pinning hope on fragmented mandate in the state amid proliferation of political parties, which sprouted to represent the sub-nationalism in several regions of the state. Thus, he contested the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections in an alliance with the political parties who were outside the mainstream of the state politics. But the mandate poured water on his aspirations, as the BJP and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) emerged two dominant players, with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD (U) taking the third position with reduced strength.
“Now that Nitish Kumar has gone back to Tejaswi Yadav, Kushwaha is faced with the prospects of political irrelevance. The assertive Muslim-Yadav politics with the support of the Kurmi constituency will leave no space for his Koeri vote base. He has to leave the JD (U) camp at the earliest, as there exists no future for him,” said a political editor of a national daily, who wished not to be named.
This is in line with the fame of Kushwaha as the fox of the Bihar politics. He cannot hunt on his own. He has to pounce on his share of flesh by hiding behind the hunter. Kushwaha knows that the hunter will leave some electoral flesh for him, as he has utility for the party that is without the dominant other backward caste support base. “Koeri caste cannot be comfortable in the company of assertive Yadav. They are mutually exclusive electoral social groups. This explains the restlessness of Kushwaha,” said a Bihar-based political observer.
Kushwaha by all accounts is on his way out of the JD (U). Bihar Chief Minister has maintained that Kushwaha has done it three-four times in the past. So, it doesn’t matter if Kushwaha leaves the company of Nitish Kumar once more, the CM sought to convey.
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