Even before Ram Vilas Paswan’s disappearance added another layer of uncertainty about Bihar’s electoral landscape, it was by no means certain that Nitish Kumar’s levy on the Patna Secretariat had been renewed. The unpredictability has as much to do with the open defiance of the Lok Janshakti Party to the claims of ‘Sushasan Babu’ as it does with the role that Nitish Kumar has chosen for himself, inside and outside Bihar.
At the end of the day, it seems that history had assigned Nitish Kumar only one role: helping the BJP gain acceptability and respectability in the eyes of Bihar’s backward and marginalized classes. A man who once claimed the mantle of Karpoori Thakur was courted by the Hindutava strategists; they worked on his huge ego, his ambition, and the basic irreconcilability of Yadavs and Kurmis.
The BJP strategists played it like a tuned so pure, So much so that when a Ram Vilas Paswan was able to muster the courage and conviction to leave the Union cabinet after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee failed to tame the former Prime Minister of Gujarat in the wake of the 2002 riots, Nitish Kumar stayed put in the NDA. His continued presence as central minister helped Vajpayee maintain the image of an acceptable moderate man beyond the narrow confines of the BJP.
It was only in 2013, and, at the time, Vajpayee was confined to a fan and LK Advani had been despised and marginalized within the BJP, that Nitish Kumar refused to play in Sangh Parivar’s Hindutva Orchestra. After all, he was the prime minister of a state much larger than Gujarat and he was not without latent national ambitions; I didn’t see any reason to be Narendra Modi’s second violin.
And, in 2015, it was Nitish Kumar who took the shine off a rampant Narendra Modi when the JD (U) -RJD-Congress combination combed the BJP’s hair. More importantly, suddenly, the Prime Minister of Bihar was seen by many, including the Sangh parivar pracharaks – as the only man who could rally forces outside the BJP, to Devi Gowda. Nitish Kumar had to be contained.
Having evaluated the man, the BJP strategists assiduously worked on Nitish Kumar’s ego and authoritarian impulses, and succeeded in shackling him. From Nitish’s point of view, the Bihar leader of the saffron party, Sushil Modi, was at any time preferable as deputy chief minister than those who demanded Yadav brothers.
However, when he returned to the BJP, leaving the RJD, he ended up wasting his only valuable asset: he could no longer refuse to endorse the political persona of Narendra Modi. Modi’s political untouchability finally ended. At the time of the 2019 Lok Sabha battle, Nitish was just another senior minister, say, like Naveen Patnaik, who couldn’t add or subtract from Modi’s sales pitch.
Coming to the 2020 Bihar assembly battle, he’s a different BJP and a different Narendra Modi, and both are weary of Nitish Kumar’s prima donna pretensions. It has already become expendable because it is no longer useful and must be made to squirm.
Enter Young Chirag Paswan. After lengthy discussions with the BJP leaders, the LJP labor chief announced the divorce of Nitish Kumar and his JD (U) in Bihar. And, all the political reporters onboard Amit Shah, aware of the innermost calculation of BJP’s ‘Chanakya’, fell over each other to knowingly whisper about the very clever game BJP had played.
Never mind the very elaborate and very public assurances from the BJP delivered a few days after Nitish Kumar remains the NDA’s top ministerial election, no one is Bihar willing to bet that the Modi-Shah duo would deliver on that promise. Ask Uddhav Thackeray.
Until two weeks ago, the NDA was insane. Bihar’s choice was in his pocket. All these super strategists and masters of sub-caste politics had to do was rekindle the memories of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s jungle raj, yes, 15 years ago. The new middle class would not want the marauding Yadavs to pounce on Patna, seizing the properties of the upper castes and women. We were confidently told that Bihar voters – otherwise hailed as the most politically conscious electorate in the country – would blindly follow their caste leaders, euphemistically called “social coalition partners.”
At best, it was an interested assumption that Bihari’s imagination remains so desperately locked in memories of the 1990s that voters will be all too willing to ignore the pain and humiliation faced only a few months ago by the millions and million migrants. and their families, all because of an insensitive, incompetent and arrogant central government.
They also reminded us of the massive rewards that will come down the road from the NDA due to the death of Sushant Singh Rajput. All of Bihar was supposed to be eternally grateful to the prime minister for defending a Bihari child. A man who was unmoved by the plight of the millions of Biharis who returned home after Modi’s sudden and thoughtless confinement is now serenaded for shaking up the suicide death in distant Mumbai of a movie star.
They also told us that Modi’s popularity remains intact; The skillful propagandists of the ruling party have already worked on the martyrdom of the “Bihar regiment” on the India-China border, regardless of the national disgrace of Chinese troops denying India the use of 1,000 square kilometers of their own land. It is Nitish Kumar who will now need Narendra Modi to get votes for the JD (U) candidates.
In any case, Chirag Pawan will make Nitish Kumar the problem, which would tear the image of ‘Sushasan Babu’. The Battle of Bihar will produce more than one loser, but this is clear: Nitish Kumar will not be among the winners.
.
