Nitish Kumar matches DNA with Modi: Why Grand Alliance with Lalu Yadav fell apart
It’s a question of DNA. Just before 2015 Assembly elections in Bihar, Nitish Kumar had sent lakhs of hair samples to Narendra Modi and had said, “Examine the DNA of a Bihari”, as a dramatic gesture to Modi’s tasteless quip.
Now 20 months on since November 2015, BJP has finally managed the feat. Now the report reads, the JDU DNA has matched that of BJP’s, once again.
In the tumultuous waters of Indian politics, two names resonate as the “strongest”, the “cleverest”, as “focused and result-oriented”. Those two names belong to none other than Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar.
And the similarity between them is quite simple really: the golden rule of “no permanent enemy, no permanent friends” in politics. Nitish Kumar’s countless flip-flops, his volte-faces with his one-time sworn enemies, indicate only one thing. More than even Modi, it’s Nitish who’s the master of the hallowed U-turn asan.
In 2013, Nitish parted ways with the BJP because he was not ready to accept a man with “communal” strokes on his sleeves. In 2015, he even matched his steps with the fodder scam convicted Lalu Prasad Yadav, and orchestrated the chorus of the Mahagathbandhan, the Grand Alliance against Modi, successfully. Modi was defeated and how.
It seemed the Modi juggernaut, the Modi tsunami, and whatever words the bamboozled media had previously used to describe their newfound God in the new prime minister, had been stopped in its tracks. The incomparable and indefatigable Modi-Shah duo and their “Chanakyaniti” stood discredited for a change. Nitish (and Lalu) had won. Convincingly.
How things come a full circle! 20 months in office, all the ideological hatred and the electoral war came to stand on their head. Modi and Nitish have decided to rejoin hands and have a monsoon honeymoon. The love story unfolded over quickly following tweets – an open invitation and a full-throated acceptance – and voila, Bihar’s history is being rewritten again. Old allies are back under the same umbrella.
देश के, विशेष रूप से बिहार के उज्जवल भविष्य के लिए राजनीतिक मतभेदों से ऊपर उठकर भ्रष्टाचार के ख़िलाफ़ एक होकर लड़ना,आज देश और समय की माँग है
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 26, 2017
हमने जो निर्णय लिया उसपर माननीय प्रधानमंत्री @narendramodi के ट्वीट के द्वारा दी गई प्रतिक्रिया के लिए उन्हें तहेदिल से धन्यवाद.
— Nitish Kumar (@NitishKumar) July 26, 2017
As BJP welcomes Nitish with open hands and heart, they know exactly what it’s worth, however, old tweets of Nitish Kumar, castigating Modi severely, unsparingly, written as if Nitish would never have to turn back again, had been plastered all over the Twitterverse on the evening of July 26, the day Nitish Kumar resigned as Bihar chief minister, saying his “conscience pricked him”, keeping Tejashwi Yadav as the deputy CM.
But Modi and Nitish know exactly what they have for each other in their hearts: the politics is nothing more than business. Ideology, except the one kind that Modi stands for, is dead.
But what about the DNA? The fall of the Bihari brothers – the end of Lalu and Nitish jugalbandi – is a huge victory for Modi and the BJP. It was something long awaited by Modi, who won all the forts except the land of Nalanda, where he made multiple promises, announced many schemes and had until now, got nothing back.
The one green spot in BJP’s saffron-coloured map of India has now faded and has been washed away. Nitish Kumar will be swearing in as the chief minister once again this evening, July 27, now with BJP in Bihar’s governing alliance. But it was not Nitish, it was Modi who was indeed the happiest of men on Wednesday night.
As his party prepared for the oath ceremony on Thursday in Patna, Modi (and his closest confidant, his greatest political architect, Amit Shah) relished consigning to dust the only hope of the anti-Modi 2019 coalition having a credible face in Nitish Kumar. We still need to look at the immediate and the particular. Why did Nitish resign citing his conscience, only to rebrand and resurrect a union with the ones he had sworn off? Within Bihar, this quitting over conscience narrative would work well. Nitish would be gaining more power and space as the CM in his own state.
But what else has been cooking and what else led to Nitish pulling the rug from below Lalu Prasad Yadav’s feet? Let’s look into this one by one.
Rivalry with Lalu
Firstly, the anti-incumbency of two previous terms (in 2005 and 2010) and fear of the Modi wave forced Nitish to shake hands with Lalu in 2015, the original archenemy. The mismatch won the match in 2015 and Nitish became CM again.
However, what worked in the choppy waters of 2015 electoral politics, the life saving boat of Lalu-Nitish alliance, became the major drag on Nitish’s flight in the corridors of power and governance. Lalu was busy rehabilitating RJD, ensconcing his son in the cushy and entirely undeserved position of the deputy CM of Bihar.
20 months on, Lalu was merely a taint on Nitish’s “Mr Clean” image. Snipping off the ties and surgically striking to throw the RJD out from the political power hall Nitish considers deservedly his own, was therefore easy when the mind was made up again. Overtures had been around for a while. Nitish needed to cross over.
Old comforts
Secondly, the understanding of how power must be practiced and shared is better between Nitish and the BJP. They are old friends and Nitish finds himself more comfortable with them instead of rival Lalu, who is more aggressive, controlling and overpowering.
Casting off "with Lalu" tag
Thirdly, “with Lalu” is a badge Nitish never quite warmed up to. Not only the corruption scams that weighed the Lalu camp down but also Lalu’s real mass appeal among Bihar’s Yadavs and Muslims was something that irked Nitish to no end.
Entering into a formal alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav was one of those political compulsions that Nitish had always planned to get out of, given the first real opportunity. Though it took some time to rehash an old badge, Nitish has cast off the “with Lalu” tag.
Back to "Mr Clean"
Moreover, the squeaky and finicky Nitish has, so far, maintained the image of “Mr Clean”. Departing from the Grand Alliance helps him restore the image with all its political embellishments and come out from the suffocation of the new-fangled charges of corruption against the members of Lalu Yadav’s family.
Bye-bye UPA
Nitish has not only dumped the Grand Alliance in Bihar, he has also deserted the UPA, the idea of a collective opposition led by the Congress party with a prime ministerial face for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, such as Nitish’s. Clearly, his post resignation speech was a statement that even the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and the party were unable to help keep the secular “Third Front” clean and fair.
But Nitish has been backtracking and deserting the UPA bandwagon and the Congress for past few months. He supported Modi’s demonetization quite wholeheartedly, unlike the other Opposition parties. He also voted against the wish of a united Opposition in the presidential elections and flaunted his proximity with the former Bihar governor Ram Nath Kovind.
In fact, Nitish never quite liked to be seen as a leader who follows and recognises the authority of the Congress-led UPA. He always preferred being seen as a stand-alone and potent Opposition leader. Now that he has chosen to go running back to the arms of the BJP because the two are old allies, comfortable with the ways of each other, keeping it most transactional and less an ideological fight, Nitish is once again in his own mode of doing politics. Plain electoral math and some clean governance: no bigger pretensions, ideological or otherwise.
Stability of Bihar
Nitish, after his resignation, remained focused on the “basic principles of politics” in his speech and kept the stability and development of Bihar as the main agenda. This shows that a clean and zero-tolerance government is what Nitish is committed to and that is much required for the development of his state. Indeed, Nitish is a Bihari politician out and out. He returned to the Bihari DNA and the task of re-engineering it to robust health.
Clipping RJD’s wings
Having the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal in power has always been one of the most worrisome factors for Nitish in Bihar. In 2015, the bigger turnout for the RJD compared to Nitish’s own Janata Dal (United) in the Assembly election, was an indicator enough for Nitish that he still couldn’t beat a Lalu in the game of good old mass appeal. Lalu has always been a more popular mass leader: Nitish in comparison is an able administrator. Unlike Modi, Nitish has not been able to fuse the two inseparably into one idea of Bihar’s leader.
But what Nitish certainly is a cunning and clever politician. Whereas Lalu is encumbered by his family members, his blind love for son Tejashwi, Nitish is cool and objective, not hesitant to pull the plug. This time, by throwing the RJD out of power, Nitish has played a bigger game. He has put a spanner in the spinning wheel of Lalu’s Bihar re-entry and re-emergence as Bihar’s political hope. That spell is now broken. Now out of power and mired in corruption charges, the second innings Lalu Prasad Yadav is perhaps prematurely over. This is not just bad weather for Lalu, this is the moment when the storm is beginning to get fiercer, threatening everything he had painstakingly rebuilt over the past two years, including the pan-India hopes.
Weaving the 2019 social fabric
Lastly, what about politics outside Bihar? The developments in the state are a clear sign for Nitish: he can foresee 2019 going to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah-led BJP once again. Instead of contesting with the burden of Grand Alliance and the tainted RJD, Nitish finds BJP a more convenient ally.
But that’s not all. If Nitish predictions are anything to go by, it seems the JDU leader has realised that worrying about the “Muslim vote-bank” is increasingly becoming irrelevant in the new scheme of things. New social equations, new patterns of open and overt Hindu aggressiveness are redefining the contours of electoral and political alignments. There’s a vote shift, yes, but that’s not any damage at all because new forms of electoral mobilisation are taking shape in India, unhesitatingly.
In addition, though criticised in liberal and elite circles, Nitish’s prohibition has led to women being firmly positioned in his camp. The state-wide ban on liquor has helped him win over the women like never before. Like Modi, he is looking positively at the new socio-political patterns in the country. He’s quick enough to realise his state is no exception to the general trend.
What secularism?
Nitish Kumar – the face who was most likely to be the leading man of the Alt-Modi coalition – has ended up severely injuring the very possibility of a Third Front. By choosing convenience over the big fight, Nitish has dented the very foundational concept of cobbling together a “Secular Front”, of co-emerging and co-defeating, stopping and restricting Modi by one solid display of cross-party solidarity, the political bulwark against communal forces.
Was the dive against the waves of Hindutva and Modi tsunami always an imaginary one? This is indeed a bad day for those who are against the agenda of Hindutva and Modi.
However, an honest assessment would always say that Nitish was never committed to any such grand ideological battle, simply because it was impractical, tiresome, longwinded, somewhat compromising his “Mr Clean” image in Bihar.
Moreover, Nitish had long been an integral part of the NDA in the Centre, and partnering with the BJP in the state. The one thing Nitish is really committed to is power. For power, there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies in the notebook of Nitish Kumar.