Yesterday was an interesting day of developments in Bihar politics. Nitish Kumar the CM, who was pushing for Tejaswi Yadav's (Laloo's son) resignation post the CBI charge sheeting him in a corruption case, took the decision to quit the CM post.
Obviously it was clear that he had the backing of BJP and was back as CM this morning. He wouldn't obviously quit if not for the assurance of BJP support. Nitish and his JDU alone cannot win elections and he needs the support of other parties to win elections. Individually RJD is stronger than JDU.
With this move, one of the strong alliance partners of the opposition has moved back to BJP. BJP would have also felt that they cannot repeat their 2014 performance in 2019 without more alliance and they felt it is better to ally with Nitish.
Background
Let us go back to 2013 when Modi was rising up on the BJP side and Nitish hated him to the core and he snapped the long alliance that he had with BJP. He wanted to ensure that the muslim vote is not lost. 2014 parliamentary elections changed everything when everyone lost badly in Bihar. He quit and made Jitan Ram Manjhi as the CM. Once elections were nearing he was worried that Manjhi will grow too big and came back as CM and tied up with Laloo and Congress and formed the mega alliance. The alliance won easily with Nitish being projected as the CM candidate.
CBI conducted raid about a case of corruption when Laloo was the Railways minister. Laloo and family got 3 acres of land for letting them run 2 BNR (Bengal Nagpur Railway) hotels through a rigged process. This 3 acre property was initially sold to a benami and later transferred to a company owned by Tejashwi and Rabri. This is the reason for Tejashwi being charge sheeted.
Nitish's Demand
Nitish wanted Tejashwi to come clean from the case - basically he wanted him to resign. Laloo was not keen to have his son quit so Nitish resigned. As I mentioned earlier he would have finalized BJP support before quitting. It would have been interesting if Laloo had called his bluff by asking his son to quit.
The Other Player Congress
The other partner in the mega-alliance Congress is once again the easy punching bag for media which is really frustrated that there is no alternative the Modi who is becoming more powerful each day. Nitish met Rahul on Tuesday also but Rahul couldn't do anything to ensure the alliance stayed. It is easy to blame Rahul and Congress for letting the alliance wither away and its not that they don't have a share of the blame being the largest opposition party. They are not the only reason.
Why Nitish took the decision to move back to BJP
Nitish asking Tejaswhi to quit for a charge sheet is just a reason for him to move back to BJP. There are union ministers with charge sheet who are still continuing, for that matter Nitish himself has cases of Attempt to murder and murder against him. I personally wouldn't be surprised if all these were pre-planned right from the CBI charge sheet (why else is a 13 year old case is coming back to light now?)
What are the probable reasons for Nitish moving away now
Obviously it was clear that he had the backing of BJP and was back as CM this morning. He wouldn't obviously quit if not for the assurance of BJP support. Nitish and his JDU alone cannot win elections and he needs the support of other parties to win elections. Individually RJD is stronger than JDU.
With this move, one of the strong alliance partners of the opposition has moved back to BJP. BJP would have also felt that they cannot repeat their 2014 performance in 2019 without more alliance and they felt it is better to ally with Nitish.
Background
Let us go back to 2013 when Modi was rising up on the BJP side and Nitish hated him to the core and he snapped the long alliance that he had with BJP. He wanted to ensure that the muslim vote is not lost. 2014 parliamentary elections changed everything when everyone lost badly in Bihar. He quit and made Jitan Ram Manjhi as the CM. Once elections were nearing he was worried that Manjhi will grow too big and came back as CM and tied up with Laloo and Congress and formed the mega alliance. The alliance won easily with Nitish being projected as the CM candidate.
CBI conducted raid about a case of corruption when Laloo was the Railways minister. Laloo and family got 3 acres of land for letting them run 2 BNR (Bengal Nagpur Railway) hotels through a rigged process. This 3 acre property was initially sold to a benami and later transferred to a company owned by Tejashwi and Rabri. This is the reason for Tejashwi being charge sheeted.
Nitish's Demand
Nitish wanted Tejashwi to come clean from the case - basically he wanted him to resign. Laloo was not keen to have his son quit so Nitish resigned. As I mentioned earlier he would have finalized BJP support before quitting. It would have been interesting if Laloo had called his bluff by asking his son to quit.
The Other Player Congress
The other partner in the mega-alliance Congress is once again the easy punching bag for media which is really frustrated that there is no alternative the Modi who is becoming more powerful each day. Nitish met Rahul on Tuesday also but Rahul couldn't do anything to ensure the alliance stayed. It is easy to blame Rahul and Congress for letting the alliance wither away and its not that they don't have a share of the blame being the largest opposition party. They are not the only reason.
Why Nitish took the decision to move back to BJP
Nitish asking Tejaswhi to quit for a charge sheet is just a reason for him to move back to BJP. There are union ministers with charge sheet who are still continuing, for that matter Nitish himself has cases of Attempt to murder and murder against him. I personally wouldn't be surprised if all these were pre-planned right from the CBI charge sheet (why else is a 13 year old case is coming back to light now?)
What are the probable reasons for Nitish moving away now
- There are rumors that Laloo was ok to dump Nitish and support BJP if all cases against his kids are dropped. Nitish wanted to preempt such a move and so he went with BJP.
- There were talk about him being a PM candidate for the opposition in 2019 and it is obvious that he has high ambitions of becoming the PM. Then why did he quit, probably because he felt that BJP will be very difficult to win. Even 2014 elections BJP was growing strong when he quit, so has he learnt his lesson or will it be a repeat of 2014 mistake? Only time will tell
- End of the day he is the junior party in the alliance (which will not be the case with BJP - at least in Bihar) and any day Laloo can ask his son to be made the CM.
End of the day politics is about survival, Nitish probably felt he can continue as the CM and keep his PM ambitions aside for some time.
He is 66 now and with 2019 ruled out he will be 73 in 2024 and only in Indian politics people have career plans for such age :)
