After outright denial by the electoral of Bihar, Nitish Kumar took resort of another high level melodrama by offering resignation from the Chief Minister of Bihar and arranged for sympathy from the party supporters. Badly washed away and having received all round criticism post split alliance with NDA, Nitish Kumar has been passing through a difficult political litmus test. His calculation has been proving wrong with passage of time and when party president Sharad Yadav smelt impending defeat from Madhepura seat, he lashed out Nitish Kumar in a public meeting likening him with similar of Lalu’s caste politics. Come May’16 and all apprehension turned into reality and nothing appeared to be working for Nitish and his party. His desperation and helplessness went to such an extent that he agreed to revive his relations with Lalu Prasad in the name of secularism.
Walking down the memory lane of Nitish Kumar’s emergence in Bihar, let’s go back to dark days of Bihar during Lalu Prasad’s regime. It was Lalu regime in Bihar who is also known as the architect of talibanisation of Bihar. In 90s when India went for globalisation and started running fast on the development track, Bihar was running on the track of crime capital of the nation. In the assembly election of 2000, it appeared that there was and end of lalten yug and Nitish Kumar took oath of Chief Minister but within a week he had to step down before he could prove his majority in Legislative Assembly as congress party came to rescue of Lalu led RJD to ensure that Bihar is fully talibanised in another 5 years in consideration of ministerial berth for all 20 MLAs.
When Lalu prasad was enjoying the crown of Bihar, Nitish Kumar found his future in BJP to achieve his political mileage so as to anti incumbency votes can be channelised in one direction. It was that era when he enjoyed key portfolio in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Govt in Center. It is pertinent to mention that he had enjoyed Railway Ministry and during much talked about 2002 Godhra riot post sabarmati express fiasco, he was an ally and enjoying the crown of Railway Ministry. Ultimately a day came in Bihar and sun rose in the east and people of Biahr voted against Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar became CM of Bihar in November 2005.
Nitish Kumar had been desperately waiting for that day and with an ill will in his mind for his allies BJP. He started expanding his base and public reach taking advantage of his good governance and gradually started sidelining BJP. An engineer by qualification, he created a new branch in engineering called as social engineering. swiftly and silently he started two-dimensional agenda. First to talk about development and good governance and second to create vote bank of caste and community. He started convincing muslim voters to shift loyalty from Lalu Prasad at one hand and on the other hand, with some social programmes he turned dalit voters in his camp. He was silently planning to create his own vote bank and rule over Bihar even by dumping BJP and his face came to public when he came back again in 2010 with thumping majority.
I refer my blog on him in 2010 when we was awarded with Indian of the Year award by CNN IBN. A sharp difference in his pitch can be observed now. How humid he happened to be and how arrogant he is now. Consecutive victory in elections made him think beyond his ally. His development model was even praised by Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen and was rated as better than those of Gujrat model. However, I have always been of different opinion about his political agenda and I had cautioned that a day will come that he would dump BJP. By 2012-13 he was assured of his victory on his own by way of caste and community equation. And ultimately the day came and he parted his way from BJP, the party which helped him ride on the cart of power.
By now he had started thinking out of box. In an era of political instability anyone can be PM of the nation, and Nitish Kumar too put himself in the race thinking of 30+ seats in Bihar for his party. He openly opposed Narendra Modi to ensure 100% muslim votes for achieving his mission. But BJP went to public and received wide range of support and result of 2014 election is everything to say. Being completely washed away and Narendra Modi came with flying colour with thumping majority, Nitish Kumar received unbearable setback and having no way to steal the scene, he offered to quit. What irked him the most is the fact that even his own caste, who were always unitedly with him, denied to vote him.
When entire nation came forward to stand on a single platform made for development cutting across all caste and creed and voted Narendra Modi, he had been expecting a hung parliament and his bright chance to be named as leader of third front with maximum number of seats but calculation went wrong and he immersed in the tsunami of NAMO.
Having lost his ground and lost his ally in the name of secularism, he is left with no alternative but to take a side way by offering resignation. He has lost public faith rather people of Bihar felt betrayed. All voted him cutting across caste and community but he created his own vote bank equation based on caste and community.
But I salute the people of Bihar who has shown their firm commitment not to vote for Lalu Prasad and also a person of same stature who believe in caste politics. Reason is very clear, Bihar has suffered much from caste based politics than community based politics. Well done Bihari Voters. Continue voting for the cause of development and not caste. Afterall Bihari smita is above all.
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