Dreams can be dangerous sometimes. For instance, the non-realisation of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar’s prime ministerial dream has triggered a storm in state politics once again with the JD(U) chief breaking away from the Grand Alliance to be part of NDA. With RJD insisting on Tejashwi Yadav being elevated as CM after the Lok Sabha polls this year, as part of the power-sharing deal of 2022, Nitish ran the serious risk of ending up without office. His latest power pirouette came barely 17 months after his equally stunning manoeuvre in forming a coalition government with RJD and Congress with the support of CPI(ML) after dumping NDA on August 10, 2022.
JD(U) had been frequently describing Nitish as the “prime minister of ideas”, a not-so-subtle projection of him as the PM face of the opposition bloc, right since Nitish held a meeting of opposition parties in Patna on June 23 last year and brought 15 frontline opposition parties on one platform. Subsequently, three more meetings of the opposition were held in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi but there was no unanimity on appointing Nitish, the architect of opposition unity, as convener of the INDIA bloc. Sources said Nitish, however, lost his patience after Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee proposed Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge’s name for the opposition bloc’s PM candidate which was promptly backed by AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal. That was the warning signal for Nitish, many say.
“Leave aside declaring him as the PM face, even while Nitish was offered the post of convener, Kharge was named as its chairperson. That meant he would have served as its convener just for name while Kharge would have called the shots. That annoyed Nitish,” political analyst D M Diwakar said on Sunday. On the other hand, there was no let-up in reminders from RJD that he was required to make way for Tejashwi after Lok Sabha polls. In the initial phase, Nitish had played according to the script and publicly proclaimed Lalu’s son as his natural successor. With developments in INDIA bloc not going his way, he began dialling down and started asserting himself as CM, something that only added to RJD’s impatience.
Sources said this also led to radicals among RJD ranks trying to win over Nitish’s MLAs. For the CM, it was the proverbial straw on the camel’s back and led him to make overtures for a rapprochement with BJP. Many have linked the ouster of Rajiv Ranjan Singh ‘Lalan’, who was instrumental in the break-up with BJP, as party chief to the about-turn; the latter has claimed that he quit of his own volition in order to seek re-election to Lok Sabha from Munger. Also, the near consensus in JD(U) that an association with the popular PM Narendra Modi would be far more profitable for the party in the Lok Sabha polls than the INDIA bloc clinched the matter.
Nitish’s latest flip looks more stunning than his previous ones only because he had looked quite serious in projecting himself as the architect of the opposition bloc, and repeatedly declared to make “India free from BJP”. His one-line statement had gone viral on August 10, 2022, when he said, “Jo 2014 me aaye the, kya veh 2024 me bhi aayenge (Those who came to power in 2014, will they return in 2024)?” Nitish had made this statement while coming out of Raj Bhavan after taking oath as CM for the eighth time. Nitish had reacted in similar fashion in 2013 when BJP refused to accept his demand of not projecting Modi, the then CM of Gujarat, as the campaign committee chief.
“Nitish is a master strategist, political craftsman and Machiavellian politician. He is in no habit of sharing power with anyone,” political expert Prof Nawal Kishore Choudhary said. He also blamed Congress for not giving “due respect” and showing no seriousness in sealing the seat-sharing deal.
