The sudden move of Nitish Kumar to dump BJP and join hands with Mahagathbandhan in Bihar to form a new government under his leadership is on expected lines. But, it was not expected to come so soon after the election of the Vice President, the position he coveted for himself.
Nitish has a fat ego and his ambitions have always been far more than his personal capabilities and public support. He has made up for these deficiencies by his deft political maneuvering and utilizing the compulsions of BJP and RJD to his advantage as and when the situation arose.
It is true that faithfulness is not the hallmark of practical and hard politics which thrives on treachery and backstabbing and Nitish has always outsmarted his friends and foes alike in this game.
Mamta Banerjee lost her credibility as a potential opposition leader against Modi after her lukewarm support to the opposition candidate for President, though his name was proposed by her. Again, she did not support the opposition’s Vice President candidate on flimsy grounds that she was not consulted before the finalization of the name of the opposition candidate. All this completely weakened the claim of Mamta Banerjee as a possible opposition candidate for Prime Minister in the general elections of 2024. Nitish saw an opportunity here to try his luck in the evening of his political career. Moreover, he was troubled by the machinations of BJP, which was silently pulling the carpet from under his feet and there was nothing left to be squeezed out of BJP.
But the road ahead for Nitish is not so easy. BJP compromised its interests in Bihar because it had much larger interests in Delhi. RJD has no such stake as Lalu Yadav is out of reckoning and Tejasvi is too young to aspire for Prime Ministership.
Tejasvi would aspire for bigger political space in Bihar and eye for chief ministership. Nitish, too, would try to increase his political space in Bihar for retaining chief ministership and claiming the much coveted position of opposition leader at the centre. Hence, this is an unnatural friendship and would not last long. Also, it was Lau Yadav who sabotaged the prime ministerial chances of Mulayam Singh Yadav. Tejasvi will never forget that it was Nitish who was responsible for such a long political exile of RJD.
The political constituency of Nitish and Tejasvi is the same and RJD has a greater grip over this political capital than Nitish. RJD has gained majority several times on its own and has forced like minded parties to support it leaving no option for them. This is not the case with Nitish who has thrived only with the support of either BJP or RJD. So, Nitish's move might have foxed BJP for the time being, but he would have to return to BJP again before 2024 elections as he has not much to gain in the company of Tejasvi. BJP, too, would give a better deal then to Nitish as it would badly need him because his association substantially increases its strike rate in terms of parliamentary seats. The hardcore supporters of Nitish go with BJP because they realize that Nitish has no real stake at the centre. They regard Modi a better national leader than Nitish and they are content with fiefdom of Bihar.
BJP was successful in cutting the political base of Nitish in the last assembly elections with the help of Chirag Paswan, whom Nitish underestimated. This time, however, he didn't take R. C. P. Singh lightly and didn't allow him to engineer a split in JDU. BJP lost this round of political machination due to a little haste and pushing Nitish this far leaving no option for him. One has to pay a price to keep Nitish on its side. He is definitely more wily than any politician in the country.
The writer is former Registrar, Vinoba Bhave University, Hazaribag and the views expressed in the article are his own.