What Modi-Nitish Kumar bonding in Bihar means for Lalu
The bonhomie and camaraderie shown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar at their recent meeting in Bihar has come as the surprise of the year.
Apart from taking part in the Patna High Court centenary celebrations, Modi had come to inaugurate two mega bridge projects of the railways in the state on March 19.
This was his first visit to Bihar since the BJP's disastrous performance in the state Assembly elections. During the bitter poll campaign last year, Modi and Nitish had made no-holds-barred attacks on each other.
That is why they were supposed to share cold vibes during their latest meeting but it turned out to be an anti-climax of sorts. Contrary to expectations, they refrained from firing salvos at each other and chose, instead, to underline the need for mutual cooperation between the Centre and the state so as to felicitate faster progress of Bihar.
The prime minister applauded the way Nitish had extended cooperation to the Centre in its rural electrification drive while the chief minister played the perfect host by requesting Modi to visit Bihar over and over again for its development.
True, the long-standing arch-rivals had met at official functions where they were not supposed to denigrate each other.
But they not only followed the protocol but also took one step forward to normalise their relations by praising each other.
For a change, none of them took recourse to subtle innuendos and insinuations against each other. In fact, Modi rose up from his seat to ask the crowds shouting slogans in his favour to keep quiet while Nitish was delivering his address.
In the past decade, the Modi-Nitish relationship had gone from bad to worse. It hit a new low when Nitish cancelled a dinner for Modi and other leaders during the national executive meeting of the BJP in Patna in 2010. He subsequently went on to break his 17-year-old alliance over the projection of Modi as the NDA's prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 general elections. Nitish later stitched up an alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress to form the Grand Alliance and defeat NDA in the Assembly polls.
But now, both the leaders appeared keen on not carrying forward the baggage of their acrimonious past by seeking each other's cooperation in accelerating the development of the state. While Modi admitted that the growth of the nation was not at all possible without the progress of Bihar, Nitish also realised that the Centre's cooperation was a must for extricating his state from the morass of underdevelopment.
Nobody should mind if the two best-known votaries of development-centric politics join forces to work in tandem for the progress of one of the poorest states in the country.
But is it another deft political move by Nitish? Where does the latest Modi-Nitish meeting leave Lalu? Political pundits believe that it might make him insecure.
In the last Assembly elections, Lalu's party had won nine seats more than JD(U) and emerged in a dominant enough position to dictate terms to Nitish. He now has a reason to view the Modi-Nitish meeting with suspicion. Lalu knows that Nitish had a long association with BJP and he would not lose anything by normalising their ties once again.
This may not only help him get ample support from the central government to accomplish his development mission but also prevent the RJD president from playing the big brother. With 71 MLAs of its own, the JD(U) needs the support of only 51 legislators to run his government without Lalu's prop.
The BJP, which has 53 MLAs in the 243-member state Assembly, may not mind resuming its ties with Nitish if Lalu pulls the plug on his government.
Nitish, who has run the Bihar government with BJP's support for seven-and-a-half years in the past, may or may not like to resume his ties with the saffron in future but his meeting with Modi might have made Lalu circumspect now.