By aligning with the BJP, Nitish has abused people’s
mandate and dashed hopes of an opposition unity
By Harvinder Ahuja
In a span of less than 24 hours, a duly elected government dumps its senior
partner, calls it quits, then picks another ally and resurrects itself! What Chief
Minister Nitish Kumar has done in Bihar may not be unprecedented in Indian
politics, but it is yet another manifestation of the disdain with which the people’s
mandate is treated by those elected by the people.
Rebuffing the demand for a mid-term poll, Nitish’s party Janata Dal (United) and
its new partner BJP said the people of the state had “given the mandate for five
years.” Both chose to forget conveniently that the “mandate” was not given for
the alliance which has come to rule the state in an overnight operation. In fact, it
was meant to keep one of the present coalition partners away from power.
But all this talk of ethics and probity is of little consequence to Nitish who is back
on the CM saddle for another two years, at least. Claiming the “call of his
conscience” over a CBI probe against his Cabinet colleague and ally Lalu’s son
Tejashwi Yadav, Nitish resigned as CM late Wednesday evening. Minutes after
that, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave an indication of what was to follow in a
series of tweets. The PM, who prefers to keep mum, or takes over a week or so to
respond to a mob lynching incident, was quick to sense a political opportunity and
react swiftly this time.
The sequence of events that followed Nitish resignation and PM tweets is well
within everybody’s knowledge. The state BJP with 53 MLAs in its kitty, along with
bits of NDA allies, immediately lent support to JD-U with strength of 71, and soon
the half-way mark in the 243-member Legislative Assembly was achieved. In a late
night development, the newly-forged NDA alliance, with Nitish as its head, staked
claim before Governor KN Tripathi and by the next morning, Bihar had got a new
government with an ‘old’ CM.
The person who felt cornered and kept fuming during the entire process was Lalu
Prasad along with his RJD, the largest party in the House with 80 MLAs. Not that
anybody would have any sympathy for a leader who is already debarred from
holding a position of power for being involved in graft cases. But it is sad that
even the son, who despite his age and lack of experience was made the deputy
CM, had to meet his father’s fate too early in his career. Even though Nitish had
not specifically asked for his resignation, it was incumbent upon Tejashwi to have
quit once the CBI and ED had knocked upon his door. It was Lalu pariwar’s greed
for power that brought disrepute to the Nitish Government and led to the
collapse of the grand alliance.
That, in fact, is the biggest and the most damaging fallout of the latest political
development in Bihar, which is bound to have repercussions not only for the state
but the country at large. It was the ‘mahagathbandhan’ (the grand alliance)
between the Janata Dal (United), Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal and the
Congress which had stopped the Narendra Modi electoral juggernaut in Bihar in
2015. With Nitish having gone back to the NDA, the Opposition hopes of a similar
kind of alliance being tried out in other states, or during the 2019 national
elections, have also been dashed to the ground.
At the same time, it’s a huge political and psychological victory for the BJP and a
big boost to its pan-India ambitions. The alliance failure in Bihar will also
strengthen the invincibility tag which Modi bhakts love to associate with their
leader. Besides, it will act as a dampener for those who were hoping to see a
consolidated opposition taking on the Modi bandwagon in 2019.
The leaders responsible for this are Lalu Prasad, for not persuading his son to
resign from the Government till he was cleared of all taint, and Nitish Kumar.
Today the re-appointed Chief Minister has no claims to stand high moral ground
on corruption because, besides abusing the people’s mandate, he has put paid to
all hopes of a united front against Modi.
One may like to believe Nitish when he says that it had become “difficult for him”
to work under the prevalent atmosphere but there was an option before him. If
he was so concerned about the “clean image” of his Government and really
wanted to preserve it in the backdrop of Tejashwi’s refusal to quit, he could have
simply gone back to people and sought a fresh mandate. By realigning with the
BJP, with which the JD-U had snapped its 17-year- old ties only four years ago,
Nitish has only earned for himself the tag of a rank opportunist.
The political drama that took place in Patna on Wednesday-Thursday night was
not the result of Nitish having heard the “voice of my conscience”, as he would
like us to believe. It was a well-planned move, the early indications of which were
his support to Modi’s demonetisation decision and the much-touted surgical
strikes and his breaking away with the opposition and backing the NDA nominee
for the post of the President. After consistently targeting the BJP during the last
four years and even calling for a ‘Sangh-mukt Bharat’, and then forming the
Government with the same party, Nitish has helped nobody’s cause, except that
of the BJP.
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