BJP scrambling to hold seat-sharing talks with Bihar CM is testament to Nitish’s political canniness that has seen him stay in power for 13 years.
New Delhi: BJP president Amit Shah met Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar in Patna Thursday and announced that all was well between the allies and they would go on to win all 40 seats in the state in the Lok Sabha polls next year.
It was certainly a statement of confidence and reassurance ahead of what is expected to be a tough general election. But more significantly, it was fresh testament – if one was needed – to Nitish Kumar’s political guile.
Nitish, who is also the president of Janata Dal (United), showed that he had once again weighed his political options and played the right cards to ensure that he and his party would continue to punch above their weight and stay on top in the state – a full one year before the general elections.
The tactics seemed very well crafted.
Just four days earlier, on 8 July, the JD(U), a regional party, appeared to send out a message by holding its national executive meeting in New Delhi.
“Our leaders should not be worried. 2014 (Lok Sabha elections) was our worst performance and even then we managed around 17 per cent of the vote share. Those who try to finish us will be finished themselves,” Nitish told the party’s rank and file at the national executive.
It also appeared to be a veiled warning to the BJP, which the JD(U) feels is viewing it as a partner with no value. In stark contrast to the previous time that the two parties were in power together, the BJP is far more assertive in the state now.
Political observers say Nitish is aware that he may not get the number of Lok Sabha seats that he used to earlier and his political manoeuvring is an attempt to barter a better deal with the BJP, particularly an assurance that the saffron party will back him for chief minister in the 2020 assembly elections.
“Nitish knows that BJP may not make him the CM candidate in 2020 Bihar Assembly elections,” says Sanjay Kumar, director at the Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). “That’s why he is trying to show that he has the psychological advantage over others.”
There may be political advantage as well.
An analysis of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections by ThePrint shows that the NDA was helped immensely by the JD(U) not partnering the major parties. Had the JD(U) allied with the RJD and the Congress, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which won 31 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, would have lost 18 of those seats.
The noises that the JD(U) has been making over seat sharing and the urgency with which the BJP has broached the subject show that both parties are conscious of the potential damage that Nitish could wreak.
On the right side of power
It is this guile that has served Nitish Kumar well and kept him in office as chief minister for 13 years, political observers said.
In the last 18 years, the JD(U) president has been chief minister six times, the shortest being for a week and the longest for five years at a stretch.
This, even as the vote share of his party, with no real caste base, has hovered around the 15-20 per cent mark. In a critical heartland state such as Bihar, historically only parties or coalitions that secure around 35 per cent of the vote have been able to form the government.
“It has nothing to do with the vote share of JD(U). Nitish has just been lucky enough in choosing the right alliances and getting their votes transferred to his party,” says Sanjay Kumar. “This is simply political calculation rather than political strength.”
The rise to the top
Nitish Kumar’s first stint as Bihar chief minister lasted a week when his Samata Party attempted to form the government in the state along with the BJP in 2000.
The Samata Party was formed in 1994 when Nitish Kumar along with George Fernandes and Sharad Yadav broke away from the Janata Dal. It merged with the Janata Dal (United), another breakaway faction of the Janata Dal, in 2004.
The next year, 2005, saw Nitish become a full-fledged chief minister, when the JD(U) won 88 of the 243 assembly seats in the state, with a vote share of over 35 per cent. Ally BJP won 55 seats with a vote share of 33 per cent to be part of the coalition government.
In 2010, the alliance registered a huge victory by winning 206 seats. Both JD(U) and the BJP secured a vote share of around 40 per cent. The JD(U), however, won 115 seats against the 91 won by the BJP.
It was during this term that Nitish Kumar began asserting himself as the face of Bihar, with an eye on national politics. In 2013, when the BJP made Narendra Modi the chairman of election campaign committee, Nitish quit the NDA. He dismissed all BJP ministers and formed a new cabinet with outside support from the Congress.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the JD(U) contested in an alliance with the CPI but managed only two seats. Its vote share was reduced to 15.8 per cent. Four days after the results were announced, Nitish quit as chief minister on 20 May, 2014, handing over the reins of the state to Jitan Ram Manjhi.
Observers say he wanted to play a larger role in forging a national alliance against the BJP. “Nitish had enough experience and goodwill as a chief minister and he wanted to use it to catapult himself onto the national scene against Modi,” says a JD(U) leader. “But he had to come back to the state as Manjhi was destroying everything that Nitish was known for.”
On 22 February, 2015, he once again assumed charge as the chief minister of Bihar, this time with outside support of both the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress. He once again demonstrated his political smarts by getting the Congress to ensure that Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD, which has a sounder voter base, announced him as the CM face of the alliance before the 2015 assembly elections.
As expected, the grand alliance won 178 seats in the 243-member assembly to form the next government. Nitish remained chief minister even though the RJD won more seats than the JD(U).
A national role
Having regained power in 2015, Nitish seriously pursued the idea of forging a nationwide alliance against the BJP, taking the lead in talking to other regional parties.
Just before the UP elections of 2017, he attempted to merge the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) into the JD(U), in an attempt to boost his party’s presence outside Bihar and his chances of being the opposition’s prime ministerial candidate against Modi.
Sources told ThePrint that there was wide agreement over his name and even the Congress was willing to extend support at the right time.
The BJP victory in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, however, made Nitish sceptical of the future of opposition alliance. “It was his calculation that if BJP can win UP, it would still be way ahead of any coalition. There was a choice of being the CM or going nowhere. He chose the first,” says a leader close to Nitish Kumar.
In July 2017, Nitish was back with the BJP. “There is no challenge to Modi as a Prime Minister in 2019,” he said on 1 August, 2017, four days after he quit the grand alliance to form the government with the BJP. “We are a small party and we know our limits.”
But the Bihar chief minister has tried to keep the BJP in check by regularly making noises against his ally. He has also tried to create an NDA within the NDA, aware that the BJP he was now dealing with was no longer the saffron party of old.
He quickly allied with Ram Vilas Paswan, the leader of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), an NDA constituent. Paswan’s brother Pashupati Kumar Paras was inducted into state cabinet by Nitish, despite the fact that Paras was not a legislator. He was made an MLC.
But Sanjay Kumar of CSDS believes that the political fortunes of the Bihar chief minister are unlikely to remain on the ascendant. “Nitish has just been lucky all these days. But his luck is running out as his bargaining power is decreasing,” Sanjay Kumar said. “Whether he stays with the NDA or moves to the opposition camp, he is on the verge of a decline”.
Nitish plays his good governance and strong administrator card. But according to Sanjay Kumar, there are enough people in the BJP or even in the RJD who can replace him.
“In the Indian psyche, we start finding good things in a person once he occupies the chair. Since no one has got the chair except Nitish, he might think he is irreplaceable. That is not the truth,” he said.