Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who is also the national president of JD(U) has kick started his Mission 2019 by crossing the border and addressing meetings in Dhanbad in neighbouring Jharkhand and Varanasi in UP. His next stop will be lucknow on May 15 and soon he would travel to Rajasthan and Maharashtra.
Giving a call of Sangh mukt Bharat (Sangh-free India) and Sharab mukt samaj (liquor-free society), Nitish made it clear at Pindra, some 30 km away from Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s lok Sabha constituency, that he has chalked out his roadmap for 2019 based on anti-BJP and anti-liquor agenda.
The complete ban on liquor in Bihar has been acclaimed countrywide by the pro-prohibition groups who feel encouraged with prohibition in Bihar and are now rdemanding similar ban in their States too. They look at Nitish as the man who will extend his support to their efforts.
Nitish visited Dhanbad at the request of the pro-prohibition women groups and similar invitations have come from lucknow, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and some other States. “I will go everywhere when invited to campaign for liquor ban even though I don’t want to make it a national campaign,” said Nitish when asked if he wanted to become a social reformer.
The JD(U) sources said that their leader will visit every place in the country with his aggressive plank of Sangh mukt Bharat and Sharab mukt Samaj, the two aces with which he might target the BJP and other NDA allies besides the regional parties which maintain their links with the BJP on and off.
But prior to Mission 2019, he plans to pitch tents in UP where Assembly election is due in early 2017. The JD(U) in UP in all likelihood will try for an understanding with the Congress and smaller parties. Prashant Kishore, who managed the poll strategy for Nitish in 2015 Assembly election is also doing the same job for Congress in UP.
What is clearer in the possible picture is that Nitish would maintain a distance from Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP) even if his Maha gathbandhan ally in Bihar lalu Prasad’s RJD might try for an alliance with SP.
Nitish during his address at Pindra on Thursday made brief reference of Mulayam by saying that all the Samajwadi Parivar constituents accepted Mulayam as head of the unified party, but he walked out at the eleventh hour. On top of it SP also fielded candidates in Bihar polls only to hurt the grand alliance.
The JD(U) is expected to do some caste mobilisation in UP before polls with concentration on backward Kurmi, Nitish’s caste, as well as other OBCs apart from women of all castes, which are the backbone of JD(U) in Bihar, knowing fully that Yadavs and Dalits are solidly with Mulayam and BSP’s Mayawati. Both SP and BSP have declared repeatedly that they would go for alliance with any party.
Nitish’s game plan is unlikely to go down well with lalu. Even as RJD boss has not spoken on this issue, his close confidants and senior RJD leaders have started attacking CM. A stinging salvo was fired by former Union Minister and RJD vice president Raghubansh Prasad Singh who accused Nitish of weakening the secular forces by trying to form his own alliance and projecting himself as top leader.
RJD MP and another former Union Minister Mohammad Taslimuddin criticised Nitish, saying he was no PM material. The octogenarian leader said Nitish has failed to govern Bihar and was day dreaming to become PM. The statement came after lalu in his typical non-serious manner said he would be happy if Nitish becomes PM.