Nitish Kumar pulls off another surprise

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has pulled off another surprise, dumping the INDIA grouping, which he himself had helped launch a few months back, and returning to the National Democratic Alliance headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the process, he has become the first person in the country to be sworn in as Chief Minister of Bihar for the ninth time. He has been Chief Minister of the State for the past 18 years, with either the support of the BJP or the forces opposed to the saffron party, mainly the Rashtriya Janata Dal led by Lalu Prasad Yadav, the Congress and the Left parties. 
Nitish Kumar’s volte face comes at a time when the country is about to go in for elections to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after completing two terms of five years each, is vying to become the head of the government for another stint in office. This will make him the first person to become Prime Minister for three terms in a row after Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first person to head the government after India attained independence in 1947.
It is ironic that it was Nitish Kumar himself, who had convened the first conclave of opposition parties in Patna some six months back in a bid to bring opposition parties together to mount a challenge to the Narendra Modi led BJP and the National Democratic Alliance. After that, more meetings of opposition parties took place in other places to chalk out a common strategy to put up a united challenge to the BJP led National Democratic Alliance ruling the country. The objective was to ensure that in the parliamentary elections to be held this year, that is 2024, in each constituency, one opposition candidate took on the ruling coalition.
This was not an easy task as different political parties are competing for the same mandate of the people in various states and regions. The exercise was delayed further because of pre-occupation of different parties with the Assembly elections in five states last year. One factor was the reluctance of the principal opposition party, the Congress to give topmost priority to sorting out the issues before the emerging INDIA conglomerate. The Congress perhaps thought that it would win the Assembly elections in several of the five states going in for polls, and that this would give the party an upper hand in negotiations for seat sharing in the Lok Sabha elections. But when the results of the Assembly elections came out, the Congress failed to retain or win any of the three Hindi heartland states, and had to be content with a victory in Telangana.
The process of bringing about opposition unity thus got delayed. And over time, Nitish Kumar’s role as one of the prime movers of opposition unity structure also got eroded. In the initial time frame, Nitish Kumar was perhaps expecting to be named as convener of the opposition combine but nobody or party made any move in this direction.
Another setback for Nitish Kumar came at the last virtual meeting of the combine where Congress President Kharge was mooted as chairman of the INDIA alliance. There was a move to make Nitish Kumar as convenor but this was subject to concurrence by the West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s, who was not taking part in the virtual session. Nitish Kumar, in the circumstances, said that he was not interested in becoming the convenor.
It is becoming increasingly clear that Nitish Kumar expected to get a better deal from the opposition combine. In his heart of hearts, perhaps he believed that he may be able to head the combine, and have a go to be Prime Minister in case the INDIA alliance defeats the Narendra Modi led BJP in the general elections to be held in a few months time.
As circumstances evolved, Nitish Kumar perhaps came to believe that the opposition combine is in no position to displace the ruling party and coalition headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After this realisation, he appears to have decided to dump the INDIA combine and mend his fences with the Ruling Party and coalition headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Whether he has made the right choice or not will be clear only when the results of the general elections come in after a few months.

(B I Saini is a Political Analyst with decades of journalistic experience. Retired as DG, News, AIR)