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Let's try to figure this out: friction between Nitish Kumar and the Bharatiya Janata Party has reached breaking point, the Congress is therefore warming up to him, and Lalu Prasad and he are bitter rivals. The narrative from the past reads like this: Janata Dal (United), Nitish's party, has had an alliance with BJP for several years; Nitish has grown up on a strong anti-Congress diet (till last year, he would badmouth the party at every forum, and call it mother of corruption, inflation and unequal growth in the country), and he was once a close friend of Lalu Prasad.
Nitish's political journey began almost four decades ago during the Sampoorn Kranti, or Total Revolution, initiated by Jaya Prakash Narayan (JP, 1902-1979) against the Congress government of Indira Gandhi. Students were at the forefront of JP's campaign. It was at this time that Nitish, an electrical engineer by training, came in contact with Lalu Prasad and Sushil Modi and soon the three became thick friends. The glue that bound them was their strong anti-Congress worldview. Nitish's grudge against the Congress was also personal: his father, Ram Lakhan Singh, had been denied a ticket by the party twice in the 1950s. Soon, Emergency was declared and the trio was thrown into prison. When Emergency was lifted in 1977, Sushil Modi went on to join Jan Sangh (the predecessor of BJP), but Nitish remained with Lalu Prasad.
In 1985, Nitish won his first election when he was elected MLA from Harnaut, a constituency near Patna with a strong presence of his castemen, the Kurmis. It is said that Lalu Prasad helped him in securing the win. This friendship ensured victory for Nitish in the 1989 and 1991 general elections too. However, after 1991, when Lalu Prasad expanded his clout within Janata Dal and got a new set of friends, Nitish found himself on the sidelines. This resulted in ego clashes between the stalwarts and ended in Nitish's departure from the party in 1993. He, along with George Fernandes and several other leaders, formed Samata Party in 1994. (It merged with the Sharad Yadav faction of Janata Dal and Lokshakti Party in 2003 to form Janata Dal (United).) Given its strong anti-Congress views, the newly-formed party wasted no time in joining hands with BJP. It was Nitish's old friend, Sushil Modi, who helped him forge the alliance. (In recent years, Sushil Modi has also helped Nitish keep Narendra Modi out of Bihar without offending the BJP brass.) (CRIME IN BIHAR UNDER NITISH RULE)
In 1997, Atal Bihari Vajpayee made him a cabinet minister. This gave Nitish a chance to closely study Vajpayee's style of administration. Thus, every decision of the state government is vetted by the chief minister's secretariat first. Nitish trusts his bureaucrats more than his cabinet colleagues. Many say this is how he has been able to bring back governance and law & order in the state. Most of his colleagues do not mind, but some despise it. Jamshed Ashraf, the former excise minister, wrote a fiery letter to Nitish in 2010 accusing him of being surrounded by corrupt bureaucrats. It was the first direct and personal attack on the chief minister. Actually, the architect of the unsavoury incident was Nitish's former confidant, Rajeev Ranjan Singh aka Lallan Singh, who was unhappy with the growing proximity between a topnotch bureaucrat (who is today a Member of Rajya Sabha) and Nitish. Ashraf was thrown out of the party, as was Lallan Singh.
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Nitish has also been accused, on more than one occasion, of controlling the media through advertisements. In the absence of large private advertisers, most periodicals and news channels in Bihar rely heavily on the state for advertisements. Last year, the Press Council of India sent a fact-finding committee to the state to look into the matter. In its draft report, which was leaked in the media, the committee said it found many examples of this. It stated how a senior journalist of a prominent Hindi daily was quickly transferred out of the state after he reported a scam in the distribution of liquor licences. The report said: "A dangerous trend being witnessed in Bihar is that the right to write the truth has been lost." It also said that "hundreds of activities of the chief minister were prominently published, which were neither newsworthy nor relevant. Meanwhile, news related to crime, corruption, social concerns, opposition and civil organisations did not find place." The state government denied interfering in the media and called the report one-sided.
Still others say Nitish likes the limelight so much that all the major announcements have to be made by him. But, even his worst critic will concede, there is no interference whatsoever from Nitish's family. "Earlier, the in-laws of the chief minister used to force government officials to do what they wanted," says Bheem Singh, Nitish's Panchyati Raj Minister. "However, I have not even seen Nishant (Nitish's son) in the last seven years, let alone have him interfering in matters of politics and administration. Nishant does not have any political ambitions. Same is the case with Satishji (Nitish's elder brother) and other relatives."
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Nitish is facing an unprecedented situation on his home turf. The people who lauded him for bringing back law & order into the state are now asking for more - primarily jobs. But private investments have eluded the state. Though Bihar has received proposals worth Rs 300,000 crore after Nitish came to power in 2005, actual investment has been just Rs 5,028 crore - less than 2 per cent of the promised amount - which has provided employment to 13,000 people. However, for a population of 108 million, this is a drop in the ocean. The unemployment rate in the state is still at 10 per cent, which means over 10 million employable set of hands in the state do not have work. Therefore, when his government announced its plan to hire employees on contractual basis, people fought to get in. These million-plus employees are now asking him to regularise their services, for which he is not ready because he doesn't have so much money in the coffers. The result is a direct standoff with these employees. His honeymoon with the people has begun to end.
So if he has to do well in the 2014 general elections and the 2015 state elections, Nitish needs to do something urgently. This is where the anti-Narendra Modi tirade fits in. So strident has been Nitish's line against him as BJP's prime ministerial candidate that even the mild-mannered Sushil Modi was forced to protest. "The real reason is not Narendra Modi," says a political observer, "It is all about ego and political realism. Nitish desperately needs a new vote-earning political theme. The break-up with BJP will provide him one."
That's perhaps why, though he has been demanding "special status" for Bihar since 2009, it's only now the United Progressive Alliance has warmed up to the idea. When Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, in his budget speech on February 28, said that the government will change the parameters for the special-status category of states, Nitish thanked him more than 10 times in his five-minute reaction. Later in March, after the impressive Adhikar Rally in New Delhi, he went to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram the very next day. The signs of a new-found friendship were unmistakable. Last month, he again visited Delhi, this time to participate in the national convention of his party, and let everybody know how much he despised his Gujarat counterpart - music to UPA's ears.
"Nitish is now eyeing the lucrative Muslim vote bank," admits a senior Janata Dal (United) leader, "which holds almost 17 per cent of the total votes in Bihar. Why do you think all of a sudden the issue of 'inclusive growth' has replaced the criticism of the UPA regime?" Nitish is aware of his numbers. Of the total votes polled in the 2010 assembly elections, Janata Dal (United) got almost 23 per cent and BJP 16.5 per cent, while Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal got 19 per cent. Nitish knows that his alliance with BJP, if Narendra Modi is the party's candidate for prime minister, will polarise the Muslim votes behind Lalu Prasad and, in the process, make him invincible in the elections. If he dumps the BJP over the issue, he will gain the Muslim vote - that will make up the vote share he will lose from BJP walking away. The upper castes are anyway unhappy with Nitish after the murder of Brahmeshwar Singh 'Mukhiya', the dreaded leader of Ranveer Sena, the upper-caste militia. In the bargain, Nitish will also earn the friendship of the UPA government in New Delhi.
There are, after all, no permanent friends or foes in politics.
