In Bihar, BJP finds it isn't Uttar Pradesh

The decision by Janata Dal (U) chairperson Nitish Kumar to step down from the coveted position of Bihar chief minister and march out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was written on the wall for quite some time.

The simmers of this drastic development had become visible soon after differences cropped up between Nitish and his then confidante RCP Singh, who was found to be playing into the hands of the then JD(U) ally Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).

Warning bells started ringing for Nitish no sooner than he could smell the rat, realising that the BJP’s top leadership was out to do a Maharastra in Bihar. While propping up RCP Singh, BJP’s obvious design was to build him into another Eknath Shinde and devastate the JD(U) in the same manner as it succeeded in dismembering the Shiv Sena in Bihar.

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Politically far more astute than Maharashtra’s Uddhav Thackeray, Nitish pre-empted BJP’s machinations, decimated RCP Singh within the JD(U) and finally said goodbye to NDA.

While the BJP was still playing its games through RCP Singh, Nitish rebuilt his bridges with old associate and friend Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), as well as the Congress. Lalu’s son and a well-established inheritor of his political legacy Tejashwi Yadav quickly responded to ‘chacha’ Nitish’s moves. “RJD will extend full support to JD(U) if it were to step out of NDA,” was his full-throated announcement well before Nitish actually took the final step.

For the time being, it is pretty evident that Nitish would shortly once again form the next Bihar government with the RJD, Congress and the left parties in tow, thereby marking the revival of the ‘mahagathbandhan’ in the state that never in its history gave any winning mandate to the BJP.

Read | Message from Bihar: Modi neither unstoppable nor unbeatable

Even at present, the BJP has only 77 seats in the 243-member Bihar assembly. It was 45 members of Nitish’s JD(U) and five others that the NDA could cobble up a majority with 127 seats to form the last government in November 2020. Tejashwi Yadav was left high and dry even as his party was the single largest, with 79 members in the house. Left parties with an impressive tally of 16 stood like a rock behind Tejashwi, but Congress party’s pathetic performance with just 19 seats could not take UPA anywhere ahead of 114 seats.

Nitish Kumar’s decision to stick with NDA led to many misgivings between him and the Yadav clan. Being adept in the skills of many roller-coaster rides, Nitish managed to maintain his own political identity as well as the entity of his party, besides keeping his promise of taking Bihar on the path of development. However, he did not allow himself to be dominated by the BJP, whose leadership did not miss any opportunity to undermine him.

Over the past few months, Nitish appeared even more emboldened when he made it a point to hit back at the BJP whenever the powerful ally would try to rub him on the wrong side. And now, when it became clearly evident that the BJP was all set to do an Uddhav Thackeray on him, he promptly rose to the occasion and crippled the saffron party. His critics, however, see him as the “most unpredictable” politician who had also parted ways with the NDA earlier, only to fall back in their lap again.

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What came to Modi’s advantage was the BJP’s failure to build a second-line leadership in the state after its veteran Sushil Modi (who remained deputy chief minister in the past) was sent to the Rajya Sabha in 2020. Today, the party has no leader of consequence in a politically vibrant state like Bihar. Sanjay Jaiswal, the state BJP chief, is not a patch on Nitish, while others are political pygmies rarely enjoying any clout beyond the geographical boundaries of their respective political constituencies.

Despite his political differences, Nitish always maintained healthy personal relations with rival political parties, including the RJD and the Congress. His background as a socialist and profile as a product of the JP movement of the mid-seventies comes in handy to enlist the prompt support of left parties, which have continued to thrive in this part of the country. Significantly, at a time when left parties stood marginalised even in the cradle of leftism – West Bengal – the parties managed to put up a tally of 16 at the 2020 Bihar assembly election.

Read | Message from Bihar: Modi neither unstoppable nor unbeatable

It was also important that the BJP leadership could never turn Bihar into a ‘Hindutva’ laboratory, which it successfully achieved in Uttar Pradesh. Unlike UP, where religious flash points like Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura came in handy for BJP-RSS to play up hardline Hindutva for mobilising political support, Bihar did not have a single Hindu destination that could be used for reaping a political harvest.

The sharp caste divides and dominance of the OBCs, accentuated with the advent of the Mandal Commission, did not leave any scope for the rise of ‘kamandal’ (symbolised in Hindutva). And that was what could upset BJP’s Bihar apple cart in 2024. Sure enough, that is bound to be a major cause of worry for BJP’s masterminds in Delhi.

Notwithstanding all kinds of allegations being levelled by the BJP leadership against Nitish Kumar, the fact remains that his decision to part ways with the saffron party comes as a jolt to prime minister Narendra Modi’s obvious mission of making India “vipaksha mukta” by 2024 when the nation next goes to poll.

(Sharat Pradhan is a journalist and author based in Lucknow)