by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Narendra Modi revelled for years as the self-proclaimed architect of the "miracle state" of Gujarat, till he woke up to his larger calling as the Prime Minister of India. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of course cuts a lower profile than Modi, though he is better qualified and armed with a consistent track record of imaginative governance. After the Modi tsunami in 2014, there was not much to compare the two men on electoral scoreboard, the BJP-led NDA having cornered 35 of Bihar's 40 Lok Sabha seats, Nitish's JD(U) being left with only two.
But much water has flown down the Ganga since then. The 65-year-old engineer-turned-politician
with an unflinching socialist bent of mind has, in a way, turned the table on Modi as he swept the Bihar assembly elections last year. Apart from giving BJP its bloodiest nose after 2014, it put Nitish Kumar on a national pedestal for the first time. Nitish Kumar is a cautious player who has his roots in the JP movement of the 1970's. So far, he has firmly denied, at least in public, all suggestions that he might take on Modi in 2019. But his recent interest in the politics of Uttar Pradesh—"Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have demographic and cultural continuity", according to him—indicates that he must be nursing larger plans. The fact that he has a Bihar-style mahagatbandhan in Uttar Pradesh on his mind is apparent from some of his quick moves last week. Like initiating an alliance with Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) which may culminate in a merger at one stage. Nitish has also touched base with Apna Dal chief Krishna Patel and is in touch with other minor parties, like Peace Party of Dr. Ayub.
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Nitish Kumar is a cautious player who
has his roots in the JP movement of the 1970's. So far, he has firmly denied,
at least in public, all suggestions that he might take on Modi in 2019.
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Sensing competition, BJP has ratcheted up its media resources to present Bihar as being back again to its "jungleraj" days. The propaganda's popular appeal is arguable as Nitish is still held in respect for his creative innovations, both as former Union Railway Minister and Bihar Chief Minister. It was he who began the online railway ticket booking system and expanded booking counters, an innovation that hugely facilitated train travel. In Bihar, his introduction of the state gifting of bicycles to girl students led to a dramatic drop in female dropout rate after middle school. Between 2005 and 2014, female illiteracy rate halved and the income of the average Bihari doubled.
However, for Nitish, the challenge of Uttar Pradesh is quite different from Bihar. Beside his JD(U) enjoying no more than a marginal presence in Uttar Pradesh, it does not enjoy support so far of either Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati. Having RLD on his side is not enough for Nitish as its social base of the Jat community is heavily eroded. SP, however, is wary of Nitish.
It set up candidates against the Bihar mahagatbandhan last year. There are three assembly by-elections due this week, all of which belonged to SP. Nitish is campaigning against them all.
That leaves him with BSP. In Lok Sabha elections, Mayawati could not win a single seat yet garnered a hefty fifth of the total votes polled. It happened because her tried strategy—of getting Brahmins and Dailts together—failed in 2014. There was another curious reason. Though Mayawati has under her thumb the jatav or chamar community, who are a good 55 per cent of the state's dalits, according to 2011 census, she has little traction with other dalit communities like pasi, dhobi, valmiki, khatiq and dushad.
The pasis comprise 15 per cent of dailt population. The community is significantly susceptible to BJP's mastery of using folklore as history and playing on popular sentiments that it creates. Pasi pride is built on the folk tale of a mythical king of the community having once vanquished a relative of Mahmud Ghazni. It was a fertile ground for BJP to reap a rich electoral harvest in 2014.
Non-jatav dalits of UP allege they got a raw deal from Mayawati when she headed the government. Nitish is targeting the non-jatav dalits who supported BJP hoping it could be the best of a bad bargain. But pasi boys and girls still do not have a better representation either in government jobs or in the reserved seats of colleges and universities. There are social taboos against their intermixing with even jatavs, not to speak of other castes. Separate student hostels for pasi are necessary.
Addressing a rally last week at Gazipur attended by many non-jatav listeners, Nitish focused on the bane of caste system, thus firing double-barrel at both BJP and Mayawati. He is actually working towards a rainbow gathbandhan of castes and communities—of Muslims disenchanted with an increasingly BJP-leaning Samajwadi Party, a thick slab of Dalits, backwards like the kurmi, the maurya, the khushwah or the rajbhar, not to speak of many non-yadav OBCs looking for an escape from upper caste or yadav domination. Nitish has not promised an alternative yet, but he is certainly checking if he can construct one.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is his friend and admirer. Nitish has the best of relations with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. So close are the two that Mamata Banerjee. So close are the two that Mamata attended his swearing in ceremony in Patna despite her arch enemy CPI(M) being present. And so were BJP’s partners Akali Dal and Shiva Sena. There was M.K. Stalin from Chennai and NCP supremo Sharad Pawar. In the land of Mahabharat, appearance in ceremonies is usually the tacit beginning of an udyog Parva and the search for a new Bade Bhai of politics. So what if he is Patna’s Munna, Nitish’s pet name?
