After Poll Victory, Nitish Kumar to Play Second Fiddle to BJP in Bihar

Patna: A day after the victory of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Bihar Assembly elections, it is more or less clear that Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United President Nitish Kumar is set to play second fiddle to his powerful ally the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He has no other option.

Nitish Kumar is likely to continue as the chief minister with the BJP in full control of politics and government, according to discussions everywhere from the streets to political circles across the state.

The sentiment is reflected in BJP leaders vocally giving credit for NDA victory to the party’s popular face Prime Minister Narendra Modi instead of Nitish Kumar. However, it was Kumar who was the chief ministerial candidate of the NDA and under whose leadership the election was fought. This sheds some light on the real picture of politics within the ruling alliance in the coming days.

With the BJP managing to win 74 seats (it has strength of 53 MLAs in the outgoing Assembly), nearly more than double of the JD-U, which won 43 seats (JD-U has 71 MLAs in the outgoing Assembly), a series of BJP leaders including Union Minister Giriraj Singh, Ashwani Choubey, have been crediting the electoral victory to Modi. Even a big poster and banner outside the BJP state headquarters read “Dhanyavad” to Modi for a good performance. However, the current result is still less than the 2010 Assembly polls when the BJP won a record 91 seats--highest ever score of the saffron party in Bihar.

The BJP’s disgruntled ally Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) president Chirag Paswan has also given credit of the NDA victory to Modi.

Besides, some BJP leaders have also demanded that it is time for a leader of the saffron party to become the Bihar chief minister in place of Nitish Kumar.This is an old demand within BJP that has surfaced time and again.

A senior JD-U leader said that soon after the election result, the BJP wanted Kumar to announce publicly that he would step down to make way for a chief minister from the BJP. Keeping this in view, Kumar is yet to make any statements after the poll results.

“Nitish has invited party leaders today to discuss the result and to chalk out strategy of the party to face BJP,” the JD-U leader said.

Meanwhile, a group of senior BJP leaders visited Kumar on Tuesday night and held a closed-door meeting with him.

Satyanarayan Madan, a political watcher, said the result of the election shows that Nitish has lost political legitimacy to rule Bihar. “It is simply an end of his politics. The BJP will take advantage of it. Contrary to his past record, Nitish is not in a position to command over the alliance, except his own party,” Madan said.

“I am not at all surprised over BJP leaders giving credit to Modi for NDA victory in Bihar. It was bound to happen. Now Nitish will not be a face. It is a victory of the RSS’s strategy. It wanted the BJP as the number one party that is bigger than the JD-U. It played behind the wall to weaken Nitish by taking a risky strategy this time and succeeded,” said Madan, who heads Jan Pahal, a civil society body in the state.

He said, for the time being, BJP will keep Nitish in the top chair but it will be changed sooner or later. “Nitish will be chief minister in name only as the BJP is in a position to dictate him unlike his last three tenures,” he added.

Political commentator DM Diwakar said Nitish has no option other than to play second fiddle to BJP. “There is no alternative to him after he dumped the Grand Alliance in 2017 and joined hands with the BJP again. Nitish has further weakened his political position this time,” Diwakar said.

Diwakar, former director of A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Patna, told NewsClick that a weak Nitish presents a win-win situation for the BJP. As Nitish will not be in a position to take his own stand, BJP will implement its communal agenda through him even though he has a secular face. He added, “Nitish is the most suitable leader for BJP to play a big brother now”.

Diwakar said, in the past too, Nitish Kumar was indirectly helping and supporting the BJP’s agenda. The JD-U voted in favour of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act and supported the BJP on Article 370, Goods and Services Tax, and demonetization.

On paper, BJP president JP Nadda has made it clear that the NDA in Bihar will work under the leadership of Nitish Kumar and he will be the next chief minister. However, Nadda was not the first to say so.

Senior JD-U leader Sanjay Singh Singh recalled the Lok Sabha 2019 campaign where the two parties had contested on equal number of seats “despite the fact that we had only two sitting MPs and the BJP had 22.” He said, “The BJP is fully aware of Nitish Kumar’s face value. People have faith in the CM to deliver on promises made to them, unlike others.”.

Experts say that the BJP has used ‘brand Nitish’ to fight against the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) since the mid-90s till the early 2000s. The BJP has projected a clean image of Nitish Kumar as a suitable face for the post of the chief minister in the 2005 Assembly polls and it clicked with the masses.

Several BJP leaders privately mention that the ‘Nitish factor’ is not working in the state any longer and that the JD-U itself is banking heavily on the ‘Modi factor’. Nitish Kumar, too, had promoted ‘brand Modi’ during the 2020 Assembly polls and before that, the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. “It benefited the JD-U that won 16 of the 17 seats (in Lok Sabha) it contested as an ally of the BJP, unlike 2014 when it had won only two of the 30 seats it contested in Bihar by itself,” a BJP leader said.

A senior BJP leader also said that Nitish Kumar’s popularity has declined. “The BJP has increased its number of seats in the Assembly polls but Nitish’s JD-U number decreased. Thanks to BJP, the JD-U won whatever number of seats,” he said.