Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar comes from the Kurmi caste having just over three per cent presence in the State, which has been a laboratory of caste politics for ages. If Nitish is still the tallest leader of Bihar, then there are reasons for it: He commands acceptance across caste and community, his political acumen is unmatched, and his administrative qualities unquestionable.
All of these will be on test now that one of the NDA allies wants him to relinquish the chair of Chief Minister and the BJP desires him to be a junior partner and settle for just around 10-12 out of 40 seats in the 2019 lok Sabha polls.
With virtually no chance of a reunion with lalu Prasad, Nitish will now have to explore his option within the NDA itself. A well-known election “manager” recently tried to persuade lalu to take steps to revive the JD(U)-RJD alliance by extending support to Nitish. However, sources said, lalu remained non-committal on showing any such magnanimity.
In the 2009 lok Sabha polls, when the BJP and the JD(U) were allies, Nitish was the face of the alliance and the JD(U) contested 25 out of 40 seats. In the next year’s Assembly polls, once again, the JD(U) was the big brother as it contested 141 seats and the BJP had to be content with 102 seats. In 2005 Assembly polls also, the two sides had contested nearly the same number of seats.
But that equation is bound to change now. After Nitish dumped the BJP and went solo in 2014 lok Sabha polls, the saffron outfit contested 30 seats in alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan’s lJP and Upendra Kuswaha’s RlSP. The BJP won 22 seats, whereas the lJP won six out of the seven seats it contested, and the RlSP won three out of three.
So, the BJP, the lJP and the RlSP together have 31 MPs in the current lok Sabha. That leaves only nine seats which can be given to Nitish.
BJP sources said the party may deny tickets to sulking MPs Shatrughan Sinha and Kirti Azad and may give two additional seats to the JD(U). That makes it 11 for the JD(U). This seems to be the best case scenario for Nitish, unless the BJP is ready to surrender more of the seats it won in 2014 general elections, or Kushwaha walks out of the NDA. In the second case, the BJP could offer the RlSP quota seats to the JD(U). Kushwaha has refused to accept Nitish as CM candidate in 2020 Assembly polls and staked his own claim for the coveted chair.
For Nitish who contested 25 seats in 2009 in alliance with the BJP, it will be a big climb down if he agreed to settle for just around one dozen seats.
Nitish could hope for a face saver only if there is a “sacrosanct” agreement that the JD(U) will contest the major share of Assembly seats. However, given the distrust between the two parties, a section of the JD(U) is of the opinion that Nitish should advance the Assembly polls and hold them along with the general elections. That would insulate him against any “change of mind” by the BJP leadership if the Modi Government is back in the saddles and Nitish is seen as an expendable ally. The results of the 2009 lok Sabha polls showed that the BJP will be well placed if Nitish and the RJD are locked in a triangular contest.
However, Nitish has so far persistently denied advancing the Assembly polls, which are slated to be held in 2020.
The BJP central leadership understands it too well that Nitish’s options are limited. That is why the JD(U) has not even got invitation to join the Union Cabinet and Amit Shah did not think it necessary to reach out to Nitish as he did in case of Uddhav Thackeray and Prakash Singh Badal.
Of course, Shah may still meet Nitish when he visits the State in course of his jan samparak programme, but the message has gone that Nitish may have to play the role of a junior partner in to the BJP in Bihar in the lok Sabha polls.
The setbacks suffered by his party in Jehanabad and Jokihat polls show that the JD(U) has to pay a heavy cost for abandoning lalu. Now that the BJP is trying to cut him to size and even someone like Kushwaha is questioning his ability to lead Bihar, Nitish seems to be running out of options. Can he produce one more political googly he is so famous forIJ