Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has got the political circles abuzz. Diehard optimists in the opposition camp suddenly see a ray of hope. Like Morpheus of The Matrix, they appear convinced they have found ‘the one’ in Nitish Kumar—someone who can dodge Bharatiya Janata Party’s bullets, stop them with his bare palm and save ‘humankind’, read opposition, in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
The Matrix was, however, a Hollywood science fiction movie. The political matrix in the real world is different. Look at the India Today-CVoter Mood of the Nation survey. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is still going strong.
If clichés could be of help to opposition leaders, they should also remember that the LS election is 18-20 months away and that’s a long time in politics.
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Roadblocks in march to 7, LKM
Kumar maintains that he has no davedaari or claims as a prime ministerial contender. But his talk of opposition unity and doubts about the winner of 2014 doing it again in 2024 are telling. In an article in The Indian Express on 10 August, Samajwadi Party leader Ghanshyam Tiwari recalled what Kumar had said at a dinner event in 2010: “Jo party ya parivar nahi balki apne dum par zameen se uthata hai, vo sattar-bahattar saal par jakar pradhan mantri banne ka mazboot davedaar ban payega” (One who rises from the grassroots on his own, not through a family or party, will, at 70-72 years, become a strong candidate for prime minister).” Well, Nitish Kumar is 71 today.
But to become a strong candidate, he must discard what he strongly believed—his views about the Congress—to start with. In 2010, after the assembly election results were out, Arun Sinha, his former classmate at Bihar College of Engineering, told him that a number of ‘liberals’ in India wondered why he didn’t break ties with the BJP and join hands with the Congress. Nitish Kumar replied: “Congress displays so much arrogance. It is hard to bear it. They believe they are the only political party in the country, the rest are an aberration. In real fact, it is a party of slaves. The power flows from one family…. Yeh desh ki sabse wahiyaat party hai (it’s the country’s most worthless party).” Sinha has quoted this in his brilliant biography of the Bihar CM The Battle for Bihar: Nitish Kumar and the Theatre of Power.
Kumar might have reason to hold a grudge against the Congress. His father, Ramlakhan Singh, a freedom fighter, had sought the Congress ticket to contest from Bakhtiyarpur in the 1952 elections. The party denied it, promising to give it the next time. It denied him a ticket in the 1957 elections, too. And so, Nitish Kumar’s father quit the Congress.
Of course, a practitioner of realpolitik, Kumar didn’t mind the Congress in his mahagathbandhan government in 2015. Before the grand alliance was finalised, Kumar met Rahul Gandhi and decided to ally with the Congress. That was because Lalu Yadav wouldn’t accept him as the CM candidate. Mulayam Singh Yadav and Sharad Yadav persuaded Lalu to relent. Mulayam Singh was then trying to bring splinters of the Janata Dal—the Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Janata Dal (United), the Janata Dal (Secular), the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Samajwadi Janata Party—together. Nitish Kumar abandoning the RJD to go with the Congress would have jeopardised Mulayam’s initiative.
This is all history though. The Congress is set to be back in Kumar’s government. Rahul Gandhi has been his admirer. But the Congress wouldn’t settle for a non-Gandhi as the opposition’s PM candidate.
There was a time when Nitish Kumar was convinced he didn’t want to be one. When he was opposing Modi’s PM candidature in 2013, he told his biographer: “The lesson from history is very clear: Never should the leader of a small party try to be PM with the support of a large party… Leading a (Central) government with the support of a large party is a totally stupid idea.”
Of course, when he said this, he was not in his seventies—his criterion for a ‘strong PM candidate’. It’s not just the uncertainty about the Congress’ stance that may bother him. He must have noticed the silence of regional satraps after he dumped the BJP. A surfeit of PM contenders in the opposition camp is another hurdle to the Bihar CM’s ambitions. In 2019, when Nitish Kumar said he won’t go with the NDA outside Bihar, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee congratulated and thanked him.
Now that he has dumped the BJP in Bihar, she has been silent. So have Arvind Kejriwal, K Chandrasekhar Rao and others. They could probably have accepted Nitish Kumar of 2010 when then-United States ambassador Timothy J Roemer had visited Patna and said that Bihar would be a ‘perfect place’ for US president Barack Obama’s visit.
In 2012, then Pakistani high commissioner to India Salman Bashir said the Bihar model of development was “impressive” and “this is a matter of discussion in Pakistan.” (Ruled or Misruled: Story and Destiny of Bihar by Santosh Singh).
But Nitish Kumar of 2022 doesn’t impress many in the opposition camp. One can check with Tejashwi Yadav, Kumar’s deputy, who drew huge crowds in the last assembly election, attacking Kumar’s misgovernance and failures. Unlike Modi, who showcased the Gujarat model of governance in his prime ministerial bid, Kumar has no Bihar story to tell today.
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Nitish Kumar Congress’ best bet
Hurdles aside, Kumar, as the opposition’s PM candidate, could be the best bet for the Congress. Unless, of course, it still thinks Rahul Gandhi can give a stiffer challenge to Modi.
Given that even Mamata Banerjee thinks that the BJP not getting a majority is the best scenario in 2024, Nitish Kumar poses no long-term threat to the Congress. By supporting his candidature, it can hope to achieve three objectives—denting the BJP, countervailing PM aspirants like Kejriwal and Banerjee, and earning some goodwill among backward communities.
Kumar enjoys a clean image and is not a dynast. That’ll take the sting out of the BJP’s usual campaign rhetoric about corrupt dynasts. The Bihar CM being a Kurmi would be a good counter to the BJP’s ‘OBC PM’. First ‘Bihari PM’ slogan could be effective in countering Modi’s popularity in the state where the NDA, which also included the JD(U), secured 39 out of 40 Lok Sabha seats. BJP had 17 out of these 39 and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) had 6. Fielding a Bihari PM would put potential partners of the BJP in Bihar on the defensive.
Add to that the slogan of a ‘Kurmi PM’. The BJP has been nursing the Kurmi constituency in Uttar Pradesh by promoting Kurmi leaders in the party and allying with Apna Dal. It would also put Apna Dal’s Anupriya Patel on a sticky wicket. Om Prakash Rajbhar of Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, which has been leaning back towards the BJP, of late, has already said that if Kumar becomes the opposition’s PM candidate, he may consider supporting him.
The SP’s tally of Kurmi MLAs went up to 13 in the 2022 assembly elections, up from 2 in 2017. The BJP’s tally of Kurmi MLAs in the current assembly came down to 22, from 26 in the previous one. Kurmis constitute over 7 per cent of the population in UP. Although Kurmis are spread over several states in the north, central and western India, their concentration in pockets in Bihar and UP makes them politically very influential.
In Bihar, Kurmis are estimated to constitute only 3-4 per cent of the population but Nitish Kumar has cultivated a much larger constituency among atipicchada (extremely backward classes) and mahadalits. It’s unlikely that Nitish Kumar’s candidature will resonate beyond Bihar and pockets of UP and Jharkhand. But the BJP has a lot at stake in these states that send 134 MPs to the Lok Sabha.
The Congress supporting a Bihari PM candidate may also place Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal on a sticky wicket, given the sizeable presence of Bihari migrants in Delhi and West Bengal. A Kurmi PM candidate would also make Akhilesh Yadav reassess his alliance strategy.
The results of a Nitish Kumar versus Narendra Modi contest may look predictable, but it’s the best bet for the Congress, given how the Banerjees and the Kejriwals are looking to corner it. The Congress has nothing to lose, except its ego.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Srinjoy Dey)