Sushil Modi's equation with Nitish has led to his ouster from Bihar stage

So Sushil Modi is completely and truly out of Bihar. His nomination to the Rajya Sabha in the vacancy caused by the death of Ramvilas Paswan suggests the Prime Minister has other plans for him. There is talk of a cabinet reshuffle and chatter that he might be accommodated in the Central government. He certainly will not feel out of place.

His contribution is not inconsiderable. He headed the Goods and Services Tax (GST) task force when the tax was being negotiated with the states (2011-13). In 2012, he played a key role in reviving talks over GST when he was able to establish a purposeful working relationship with then finance minister P Chidambaram. Following that, GST talks began to move forward. Later, he was Arun Jaitley’s (when he was finance minister) right-hand man in helping negotiate the complex relations with the states.

But all this time, the BJP’s discontentment with Sushil Modi was growing. In a sense, it was Nitish Kumar who was responsible for it — at least in part — by a throwaway remark. During the 2010 Assembly elections, Mr Kumar let the BJP know that Bihar had no requirement for then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi to campaign for the National Democratic Alliance. “Hamare paas ek Modi (Sushil Modi) hai hee to dusare Modi (Narendra Modi) ki kya zaroorat hai (since we have one Modi, what is the need for another Modi!),” Mr Kumar said. Narendra Modi stayed away from Bihar. But everyone, including lieutenant Amit Shah, took note of Mr Kumar’s remark, filing it away for later reference as a nexus that needed to be broken. This feeling was reinforced when Sushil Modi paid back the compliment. In an interview to The Telegraph he observed: “Nitish is prime minister material.”

The first recent sign that there was a serious distance between him and the state unit came when his nominees were kept out of the BJP campaign committee for the Assembly elections. He led from the front by charging that Chirag Paswan was going to prove a spoiler through his (Mr Paswan’s) attacks on Mr Kumar — others in the BJP silently applauded Mr Paswan for attacking the JD (U).

Last week, Mr Kumar attempted to reinstate Sushil Modi back in power in some way. He appointed him the Legislative Council’s ethics committee chairman, a post, incidentally, Mr Kumar had held when Jitan Ram Manjhi was chief minister of Bihar for a short while in 2014-15. All that won’t matter now.

Here are some facts about his early life. Technology fascinates him. His first attempt at business was the launch of the Modi Computer Institute in 1987, taking a Rs 70,000 loan from a bank. He had just got married to Jessy George, a Roman Catholic who had grown up in Bombay. The two met on a train journey to that city. She was on a trip to go birdwatching. He was on the upper berth, she on the lower. They talked all night — and needed to earn a living. BJP patriarch Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to whom he had just sent a formal invitation letter, travelled on his own all the way to Patna for the wedding, and urged Sushil Modi to join active politics. By now Sushil Modi had realised business was not for him. It closed down with him returning to politics, taking Vajpayee’s advice.

As an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activist, he participated in Jayaprakash Narayan’s anti-Congress movement in 1974 in Bihar, with other friends: Lalu Prasad and Mr Kumar. He was arrested five times under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, now repealed, and jailed for 24 months during those days, part of which overlapped with the Emergency. This was after his family had “invested” in him: He was sent to three schools, two of which were run by missionaries. He came second in the examination in the botany department at Patna University in 1973 (he was expected to fail but in the last one month before the examinations, gave his all to studies) but quit MSc to join politics.

He retains his belief that all have the right to practise the religion they want and was deeply disturbed at the Graham Staines incident (the Christian priest was burnt to death in 1999) in Odisha, voicing his disapproval publicly.

The business may have failed but gadgets continue to enthral him. He reads newspapers on his smartphone — he junked his BlackBerry for an iphone long ago and also has the latest iPad.

The Modi in New Delhi will decide what to do with the Modi from Patna. For someone who for years, resisted moving to New Delhi, Sushil Modi will be a welcome presence, bringing the scent of the earth of Bihar to the capital.