Bihar: Appointment of Prashant Kishor as VP has shrunk Nitish’s stature as leader of JDU

Lalu Prasad, Mulayam Singh Yadav and (now late) Karunanidhi––like several other politicians––had some vested interest in the growth of their respective parties: that is RJD, SP and DMK. As they have their families involved in politics they did everything to keep their parties alive.

In contrast, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has no emotional reason to see to it that his outfit, the Janata Dal (United), continues to play its part in the future. As none from his family is in politics, he is more keen to fight for his own survival rather than for the longevity of his party. Sooner or later this realisation will dawn upon the party rank and file.

In this context, the fate of JD(U) may resemble that of AIADMK, which is facing the problem of existence after the death of its supremo Jayalalithaa.

True, Nitish knows his own limitations. His claim of being a masses’ leader was totally exposed in the 2014 Lok Sabha election in which his party could get less than 16% votes when it contested in 38 out of 40 Lok Sabha seats leaving behind just two for the alliance partner CPI.

Nobody was prepared to buy his party’s claim that it could not withstand the Narendra Modi wave––and that otherwise it would have performed well.

The big question then arose: if Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal and Naveen Patnaik in Odisha could virtually make a clean sweep in their respective states and stall the Modi juggernaut why did Nitish fail when he always claimed that he had done so much for Bihar? The case of Odisha is more glaring as the BJP ended up winning just one seat out of 21 though the saffron party is strong in that state.

The 2014 electoral verdict shattered all the ambitious dreams of Nitish and ever since then he is interested in just his own survival and has never been keen to build the party. He first joined hands with the RJD and then crossed over to the BJP as he realised he could not run the government on his own.

Though it would be premature to write the obituary of the Janata Dal (United) yet there is no dearth of leaders and workers in the party who are realising that the top brass is not at all interested in rejuvenating it.

It is true that Rajya Sabha MP and former bureaucrat, Ramchandra Prasad Singh ––who was till recently dubbed as number two––was no mass leader. He would continue to function like a bureaucrat.

Yet he had advantage over Prashant Kishor in two ways; Like Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, he is from Nalanda district and belongs to Kurmi caste too.

Kurmis, in general and to some extent Koeris too, would always find themselves closer to Janata Dal (United). This is somewhat similar to the attachment of Yadavs to the RJD.

On the other hand, Prashant being a Brahmin––and that too not from Mithilanchal belt of north Bihar where the caste has some say––does not have any such base.

Nitish, who had a promising start after he became the chief minister in November 2005, has since June 16, 2013, when he had snapped ties with the BJP––if not since June 12, 2010 when he cancelled the dinner for the saffron party bigwigs––become a highly unpredictable politician.

Instead of inducting mass based leaders or promoting them for the future growth of the party, he has been trying one Rajya Sabha type politician after another.

As if not satisfied with NK Singh (now chairman 15th Finance Commission), Pawan Verma, R C P Singh, (all ex-bureaucrats), former editor Harivansh, Sanjay Jha, KC Tyagi etc. he has now thrust Prashant Kishor upon the party rank and file .

The irony is that the man, who would once love to be projected as the prime ministerial material, is now banking a lot on Prashant Kishor just because he has right connections in the BJP.

The tragedy is that Nitish is not realising this huge decline in his stature.