With JD(U) back in the NDA fold, hopes of grand national Opposition unity dashed
On Wednesday, the Opposition grand alliance collapsed in Bihar in the real sense and possibly at the national level in the aspirational sense. Nitish Kumar was one of the important pivots of Opposition unity which a clutch of parties has been pursuing to forge, to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2019 lok Sabha election. But now, not only has the Bihar Chief Minister ended the tripartite coalition of his Janata Dal (United), lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress in the State, but also reunited with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and formed the Government on Thursday. There could not have been greater misery for the Congress, which has been spearheading unity efforts, than the departure of a powerful regional leader who also enjoys enormous credibility nationwide for his governance record, to the ‘enemy’ camp. The Congress is now left holding on to lalu Prasad to take the dream forward. The problem is that the RJD chief simply does not have the credentials; he stands convicted in a corruption case, is facing similar charges in the court, and is now under the scanner for other alleged misdemeanours — with the Central Bureau of Investigation and others studying a few of his dealings. Matters have become worse for him given that all his immediate family members face allegations and are being probed. The Bihar grand alliance had become the rallying point for the call to national Opposition unity, and there was talk that the experiment could be tried out in Uttar Pradesh too, in the wake of the BJP's success in that State in the 2014 lok Sabha poll and the 2017 Assembly election — the Opposition had been wiped out. The lalu-Nitish combination was seen as a model for the possible coming together of arch rivals Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh. Along with the Congress and the left, it was considered a formidable proposition to counter the BJP. Arguably, developments in Bihar need not deter this plan, but the failure of the alliance there should make the parties in the neighbouring State wary of rushing into partnerships that are not based on common ground other than the dislike of an individual.
Opposition unity was a fledgling entity even before Nitish Kumar called an end to the Bihar grand alliance. Key Opposition leaders such as the Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik, and even Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, had never warmed up to the idea of a overarching unity to take on Modi and the NDA. On various occasions, these two veteran leaders had even complimented Prime Minister Modi and extended support on issues. Their problem was a valid one: Opposition parties had no new narrative to offer, and were over-dependent on the need to keep opposing for the sake of doing so. Now that Nitish Kumar is back to heading an NDA regime, he will need to get back to governance which had suffered when he ruled in alliance with the graft-ridden RJD. Bihar is looking forward to the efficient administration the Chief Minister had provided in collaboration with the BJP for close to 15 years before he broke off.