BJP’s surgical strike in Bihar aimed at weakening ally Nitish Kumar

Only the very naïve would believe that Chirag Paswan and Lok Jan Shakti Party’s decision to stab Nitish Kumar in the back is because of ‘ideological’ differences

BJP’s surgical strike in Bihar aimed at weakening ally Nitish Kumar
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Abdul Qadir

As BJP’s ‘Operation Lotus’ unfolds in Bihar, the Chanakya of Bihar politics as Nitish Kumar is often described finds himself trapped in an unenviable ‘Chakravyuh’.

The Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJSP) has two members in the Bihar Assembly but six in the Lok Sabha. The party of the Paswans has always punched above its weight in Parliamentary elections but has had little stake in the Assembly barring as a spoiler. In 2015, it contested in 40 Assembly seats, won two, lost its deposit in three but put up a decent performance by bagging around 28% of the votes in the seats it contested.

With at least nine Bihar constituencies reporting more than nine per cent of Paswan votes, the party hopes to improve its tally with a little help from the BJP. While it is not certain that the six per cent Paswan or Dusadh voters in Bihar are firmly behind LJSP, thanks to its alliance with the BJP, the upper castes are more well -disposed to the LJSP.

While Chirag Paswan claimed that his party’s parting of ways with JD(U) is due to ideological reasons, he has not bothered yet to spell out what those differences are. It is a different matter that both JD(U) and LJSP leaders will be hard put to define or describe their ‘ideology’.

But the game plan is clear enough. LJSP will put up candidates strategically to help the BJP in some constituencies and weaken and defeat the JD(U) and the Maha Gathbandhan (Grand Alliance) in others. Chirag Paswan has made it clear that the aim is to form a BJP-LJSP government in the state.

There is no evidence to suggest that Chirag Paswan would have taken such a decision on his own. BJP is clearly out to clip the wings of Nitish Kumar. But the question being asked in some circles is what Chirag Paswan and LJSP would gain. The short answer is everything. Parliamentary elections are a good four years away while in the Assembly, he has nothing to lose.

On its part, BJP would not mind even a hung assembly. In case of a hung assembly, with the advantage of power and money bags, it can hope to be able to break any other party except possibly the Left to form a govt.

Nitish Kumar clearly faces the biggest challenge of his political career, even bigger than the first parting of ways with Lalu Yadav, his old friend and comrade. When Nitish Kumar deserted Lalu Yadav in the 1990s he had little to lose. This time his entire political capital is under serious threat.

Nobody should feel surprised though. The JD(U) - BJP alliance has for all practical purposes been an arranged marriage caused more by compulsion (on both sides) than by choice. Despite being in absolute power at the Centre, BJP had to play second fiddle in Bihar. Nitish Kumar’s relations with the BJP after 2004 were uneasy.

For Nitish, image was as important as power and in order to keep his secular image, Nitish subtly but deliberately snubbed top BJP leaders particularly PM Modi. Late Arun Jaitley was perhaps the only top senior BJP leader with whom he was at ease and whom he trusted. Nitish saw to it that Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat CM, was kept at bay. It was at his instance that Modi was not included in the BJP’s list of star campaigners in 2005 assembly elections, 2009 Parliamentary elections and again 2010 assembly elections.

In 2010, much to the embarrassment of BJP in general and Narendra Modi in particular, a dinner invitation was unceremoniously withdrawn at the eleventh hour. Bihar govt returned the Rs five Crores received from Gujarat during the Kosi floods. Within NDA, Nitish Kumar openly sided with LK Advani in his attempt to bag the nomination for the top job. When BJP adopted Narendra Modi as the PM candidate, Nitish walked out of the alliance after nearly 20 years.

When Modi won the PM race, Nitish gave up his own post. They fought a bitter election as political as well as personal enemies in 2015 and PM Modi even questioned Nitish’s DNA. That the BJP once again embraced Nitish in 2017 - it was more part of a political strategy on the part of BJP and personal compulsion on the part of Nitish than a genuine change of heart.

PM Modi rarely forgives even his minor detractors. Mentor Advani too was not spared the proverbial stick. But Nitish Kumar is not a minor offender. He fits into the slot of a serial offender.

More than once Nitish hit BJP where it hurts the most - the extra -large egos of its leaders. Even a few months back, a serious snub came from Nitish in which the agenda on NCR was rejected through a smartly piloted unanimous resolution of the Bihar assembly in which even the BJP MLAs too were virtually left without any option other than toeing the Nitish line.

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