Nitish Kumar | The person who mastered political engineering

Nitish Kumar has a level in electrical engineering, a career that he by no means pursued. As a substitute, over 4 many years of electoral politics, he has mastered political engineering, incomes him the uncommon distinction of being one of many longest serving Chief Ministers of Bihar. On Wednesday, he took oath as Chief Minister for the eighth time. On six events, it was with the assist of the Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP) and twice, together with the most recent stint, with the assist of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

Politics was not a pure selection of profession for him. When he left his dwelling in Bakhtiyarpur for larger training in Patna in 1966, the purpose was to get a well-paying and secure job. It was Ram Manohar Lohia’s acerbic writing that ensnared Mr. Kumar. If Lohia’s phrases seduced him into politics, Jai Prakash Narayan’s name for “complete revolution” gave him an area.

Mr. Kumar, like many present-day politicians, is a toddler of the JP motion. However not like a lot of his friends, he didn’t instantly hit the limelight. His electoral profession started with a defeat. In 1980, after years of hanging round on the margins, he lastly obtained ticket to contest the Bihar elections from Harnaut, his dwelling district of Nalanda. He misplaced the seat. Nevertheless it was solely the start. Even his critics would respect Mr. Kumar’s doggedness within the face of defeat. He stayed on in Harnaut, wresting the seat in 1985 by a margin of over 20,000 votes.

Mr. Kumar and Lalu Prasad’s paths have been intertwined proper from the start. He acted as Mr. Prasad’s cheerleader and advocate, at any time when wanted. If Mr Prasad was a flamboyant orator, Mr. Kumar was the quiet backroom boy who drafted press notes and lobbied for Mr. Prasad. In March 1990, Mr. Kumar performed a vital position in getting assist for Mr. Prasad in a keenly contested battle inside the Janata Dal for the Chief Minister’s publish.

However inside two years, the spell had damaged, and Mr. Kumar and Mr. Prasad have been now not on speaking phrases. Partly, the disenchantment grew due to what Mr. Kumar known as Mr. Prasad’s dictatorial methods.

Break up with Lalu

The ultimate break got here in April 1994. A bunch of 14 Janata Dal MPs revolted towards Mr. Prasad, lining up behind socialist stalwart George Fernandes and naming the group Janata Dal (George). Whereas Fernandes was the face of the group, Mr. Kumar was its creator. On October 19, 1994, this group renamed itself the Samata Social gathering with a ringing name — Bihar Bachao (save Bihar from Mr. Prasad’s clutches). With this started Mr. Kumar’s 21-year-long feud with Mr. Prasad. Nevertheless, the highway forward was not clean. As in 1980, Mr. Kumar, as soon as once more, got here head to head with defeat. The newly shaped Samata Social gathering obtained simply seven seats within the 1995 Bihar Meeting election.

It was a couple of months after this ignominious defeat that Mr. Kumar met L.Okay. Advani, then president of the BJP, and very quickly an alliance was consolidated between the 2 on the inspiration of anti-Lalu Prasad sentiments. Whereas Mr. Kumar is accused of being an opportunist, it’s a undeniable fact that his affiliation with the BJP exceeds some other political relationship he had. In all these years, the BJP willingly assisted him on his method to 1 Aney Marg, the Chief Minister’s residence in Patna. The 2000 Meeting election in Bihar is an instructive instance.

In 1997, after the disclosing of the fodder rip-off, Mr. Prasad shaped the RJD, parting methods with the Janata Dal. He was on a sticky wicket and the Opposition hoped that he may very well be defeated. However they squabbled and squandered away their likelihood. Mr. Kumar, whose Samata Social gathering had allied along with his former socialist colleagues Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Yadav’s Janata Dal (United) simply months in the past for the Lok Sabha election, parted methods forward of the 2000 Meeting polls.

The outcomes mirrored their variations. The BJP alliance obtained 122 seats whereas the RJD secured 124. With the BJP-led Nationwide Democratic Alliance authorities led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the centre, the NDA staked declare in Bihar and anointed Mr. Kumar, for the primary time, as Chief Minister. He lasted simply seven days within the publish.

Opposition events applauded the “secular” change in Bihar. Mr. Kumar has, within the latest years, deployed the “secularism argument” to justify his political somersaults. In June 2013, only a week after then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was named the marketing campaign committee chief of the BJP for the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Mr. Kumar snapped his ties with the BJP. For a yr, previous to taking the plunge, he had been campaigning for a “secular Prime Minister”.

However his secular outlook was new-found, as many critics identified that Mr. Kumar didn’t flinch throughout the 2002 Gujarat riots. The Vajpayee authorities misplaced not less than two allies — Ram Vilas Paswan and Omar Abdullah — as a fall-out of the riots however Mr. Kumar, who was the Union Agriculture Minister, stayed on. He had not overtly repudiated Mr. Modi within the context of the Gujarat riots. However he was rising uncomfortable by his rising stature on the nationwide degree. Mr. Kumar has at all times nursed Prime Ministerial ambitions, in line with analysts. However with Narendra Modi’s arrival, there was no emptiness.

His choice to snap ties with the BJP value him expensive. He didn’t see a pro-Modi wave brewing. Within the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the JD(U) obtained solely two seats, forcing Mr. Kumar to step down from the Chief Minister’s publish. He briefly handed over the baton to his colleague Jitan Ram Manjhi. However inside months, he was hobnobbing with Mr. Prasad and the RJD. In June 2015, the 2, caught in an ungainly embrace, introduced their alliance for the approaching meeting elections within the state.

Unravelling alliance

The alliance began unravelling inside a yr. In November 2016 when the opposition raged towards the Modi authorities’s demonetisation, Mr. Kumar’s was the lone voice from the Opposition camp supporting it. In February 2017, Mr. Kumar claimed he needed to hear the voice of his antaratma or conscience. He couldn’t proceed to go a authorities when his deputy was below the radar of enforcement businesses for a number of corruption circumstances.

In politics, alliances change. The BJP heaped abuses on Mr. Kumar in 2014 when he took a stand towards Mr. Modi. However all this was forgotten and forgiven after he returned to the NDA in 2017.

Nevertheless, it was not Vajpayee’s BJP that Mr. Kumar had returned to. By the point Bihar confronted the following Meeting election in November 2020, there was no Arun Jaitley to dealer peace and put the home so as. The BJP was now not glad with taking part in a supporting position. In a Machiavellian transfer, they deployed Chirag Paswan of the Lok Jan Shakti Social gathering, to harm the JD(U). Mr. Paswan walked out of the NDA and contested towards the JD(U). Mr. Kumar, now with simply 43 legislators, was now not in a commanding place.

Asserting the get together’s newest cut up with the BJP, JD(U) president and Mr. Kumar’s loyalist, Rajiv Ranjan Singh, aka Lalan Singh, claimed that the BJP was attempting to copy the Maharashtra mannequin in Bihar, breaking the JD(U) from inside. Sources say Mr. Kumar had made up his thoughts to depart the NDA months in the past, however the RJD, nonetheless nursing the 2017 hangover, couldn’t simply belief him. It took the 2 sides almost three months to thrash out an alliance.

The plain query in everybody’s thoughts now’s how lengthy will the most recent Mahagatbandhan authorities final. Mr. Kumar’s parting message to the BJP is that this: you’ll have come to energy in 2014 however will you stay in energy past 2024? The problem additionally belies his personal want to play a bigger position in nationwide politics. However will he, in his twilight years, depart his favorite playground in favour of exploring an unsure future in Delhi? The final phrase has not been spoken.