MAHARAJGANJ SIZES UP NITISH

Since the last Assembly election in Bihar, Nitish Kumar started nourishing a false ambition that he had become the unassailable leader of the state. He had done a number of developmental works, considering which, the electorate will not commit the mistake of supporting any other political party, including his coalition partner. In this extreme  feeling of self-righteousness, he also forgot the coalition ‘dharma’. Nitish also forgot  to understand that he was the Chief Minister of an alliance, whose withdrawal of support will bring his Govt to collapse like a house of cards.

Particularly after Narendra Modi occupied central stage in the BJP, he made it his one-point programme to pull Modi’s legs to appease the minority voters. In his last Ramlila Ground JDU rally, he spoke for quite some time to disparage the Gujarat Chief Minister without taking his name. Despite modi’s  any court strictures, related to the post-Godhra riots of 2002, Nitish had guts to call Modi a communalist. He declared that even though the biggest alliance partner, BJP had the privilege of projecting its prime ministerial candidate, he would not shirk disowning the alliance, if the selected individual was not acceptable to all communities. Obviously, this open challenge was highly demoralizing to the BJP and they left indications that if the JDU stuck to this objectionable stand, the BJP was also reluctant to continue in the alliance. In this highly sentiment charged situation, there were speculations that they might part company any moment.

In this backdrop, the Maharajganj Lok Sabha byelection was announced to be held. With his anti-Modi and anti-BJP utterances, Nitish had already annoyed the upper castes and pro-Hindu voters. The constituency is known for the dominance of the Rajputs and Bhumihars. While  Lalu’s candidate, Prabhunath Singh is a Rajput, Nitish gave ticket to a a Bhumihar cabinet colleague. The Congress candidate was almost a non-entity and accordingly lost his security deposits. The seat was vacant because the sitting RJD/MP had died. Moreover, Prabhunath Singh was earlier in the Parliament for 2/4 terms and is a famous leader of the constituency. Both Lalu and Nitish made it a prestige point. They camped in the area for days together to campaign for their candidates. As indicated above, despite the alliance, no BJP voter, particularly belonging to the upper castes, voted for Nitish and to his utter surprise, his candidate lost by a huge margin of over 1,37,000 votes.

Nitish should forget his vainity and understand that even today he was not alone capable of managing majority in the state. His tactics of befriending the Congress to demoralize the BJP may boomerang on him. The people of the state desire the coalition Govt to continue so that Nitish could take Bihar to new heights of development and prosperity.