Tag: Nitish Kumar Leaves NDA

BJP Wants To Eat Up All Regional Parties, Including Allies

By LokMarg

Tanveer Khurshid, a seasoned educator in Bihar, spells out the reasons behind Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s decision to jump the NDA ship

Nitish Kumar is the biggest politician in this country, bigger than Narendra Modi. This sounds exaggerated or seems like a diehard fan talking. Far from it. I am no fan of Mr. Kumar. I am making this statement based on facts.

There was this joke about the late politician from a regional party from Bihar: No matter who forms the government, he will become the minister. The same thing can be said about Mr. Kumar. No matter who has the majority seats, Nitish ji will remain the chief minister of Bihar. He has been there since 2005 – 17 long years.

It’s not that his party is garnering so many seats that nobody has been able to outstrip him. Since 2015, his party has been continuously going downhill. In 2015 assembly elections, his party was on second rung with 71 seats, preceded by RJD with 80 seats. Fast forward five years, in 2020, JDU tally slipped to 45.

Despite failing to get the mandate of the people, Nitish ji is still the chief minister of Bihar. There’s no other leader in the country who can pull out a similar feat. Nobody knows what card he has up in his sleeve.

Nevertheless, his image is completely tarnished in the eyes of people. Everybody knows now that he has no principles. To save his chair, he can easily switch sides. His ideology flip-flops are based on his personal agenda. If yesterday, he called himself the biggest secular leader, today he might do an alliance with the BJP. Tomorrow, he can shake hands with the RJD or other secular parties. This is the problem. It’s become very difficult to trust him as a leader.

ALSO READ: ‘Nitish Has Played His Last Card, JDU Will Soon Collapse’

I am not sure as a voter whether I would vote for him even though he is in alliance with the party which I support. Now that his party has broken the alliance with the BJP, there will be some repercussions for this misadventure. The top leadership of the BJP will not let it go so easily. We all know that the ED, the CBI and other central bodies are going to land up in Bihar soon. There will be raids on different leaders of the JD(U) and the RJD alike. I think Nitish Kumar must have prepared himself and his party leaders for this, which is going to happen sooner or later.

In all this the JD(U) has suffered a major setback. There’s a dearth of leadership in the party. There’s no leader who can lead the party after him. After the death of Ram Vilas Paswan, his party completely disintegrated. It couldn’t win even a single seat in the assembly election. If this happens to the JD(U), it will be very bad for the state.

The BJP wants to devour all the regional parties which, people say, was the reason for the break-up between the JD(U) and the BJP. If this is the case, Nitish Kumar did the right thing. For a healthy democratic set up, it’s very important for regional parties to flourish.

As told to Md Tausif Alam

Nitish Has Played His Last Card; JD(U) Will Soon Collapse

By LokMarg

Abhishek Anand, an advocate in Patna High Court, reveals that there was a rush for bank lockers in Bihar on the day Nitish reunited with Lalu Yadav’s RJD

To the political observers in Delhi, what happened in Bihar’s power corridors – when Nitish deserted the BJP-led NDA and united with Lalu Yadav’s RJD – was shocking and unexpected. But these armchair observers have no knowledge of Bihar’s ground situation.

Patna’s legal fraternity, which also includes members of political legal cells, always knew the divorce between the BJP and Nitish Kumar was a surety. It was only a matter of WHEN, not IF. The BJP wanted to get rid of JD(U) before 2024 General Elections; only that Nitish Kumar pulled the rug before the BJP could do it.

However, Nitish has little political capital left after the recent switchover. He is holding on to the CM’s chair only to save his party. Once he is no longer the CM, his party will disintegrate. Now, the onus to sustain his government lies solely on RJD. BJP knows this as much as Nitish.

I will also tell you an interesting development on the day JD(U) and RJD reunited. My wife works in a bank. On the day of JDU-RJD coalition, there was a rush at her branch for bank lockers. People wanted to lock their belongings securely. You can draw the conclusion about the reputation of the new coalition now.

There is always a section of voters which is not completely loyal to one party or ideology. This section swings depending on the popular sentiment. The recent political development has not being taken kindly by this swinging voter.

ALSO READ: Patna Paradigm – Why Allies Jumping NDA Ship

My joint family has elders supporting for Upendra Kushwaha while the younger lot is inclined towards the BJP. However, as soon as Kushwaha left the alliance in the last assembly elections, he wrote his own obituary. All the caste-voters which previously supported the RLSP decided to vote in favour of the larger partner BJP. Kushwaha is now with JD(U) but his vote-base by and large has gone to BJP. The same is going to happen now with the JDU voters in 2024. This is my belief.

BJP also has the backing of the media, often referred to as ‘godi media’. Tejashwi Yadav or Nitish Kumar lack such backing. The BJP is shrewdly waiting for the new alliance to make one bad move and then put it to a media trial. That is why there was an internal diktat to RJD workers on the day of joining the government that the cadre should celebrate in moderate way, avoid any kind of hooliganism.

The speculation of a larger opposition unity with Nitish at the centre is a bogus premise. Congress is never going to do this. Let us first wait and see if this government lasts its full term. I feel the BJP will perform better in 2024 by going solo because a large part of JD(U) voters will shift to the saffron outfit. Nitish has played his last card, to save his chair and public image only.

As told to Abhishek Srivstava