Bihar: Allies, Oppn clueless as enigmatic Nitish stirs political cauldron again

Speculations over why Nitish manoeuvred Lalan’s exit from his party’s top office within two-and-a-half years of anointing him to the post following RCP Singh’s resignation as JD (U) chief and party member have alluded to Lalan’s growing proximity to RJD’s Lalu and Tejashwi Yadav. Rumours had been swirling for some time about Lalan hatching a plot with Lalu to split the JD (U) in a bid to replace Nitish with Tejashwi as Bihar CM and secure a Rajya Sabha berth for himself in the near future if he fails to retain his Munger seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls for a fourth term.

No BJP hand, officially

Officially, of course, both Nitish and Lalan have rubbished these speculations as the BJP's handiwork. JD (U) chief spokesperson KC Tyagi told reporters after the party’s national executive meet concluded in Delhi on Friday that it was, in fact, Lalan who urged Kumar to take over the party’s command in view of the pitched Lok Sabha battle that the JD (U) and its allies, the RJD and the Congress, have to face against the BJP three months from now.

Lalan, said Tyagi wanted to spend more time in his constituency, Munger, in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls; something he couldn’t do as JD(U) president as his organisational role would have required him to spend more time in Delhi navigating the tricky negotiations of the INDIA coalition. The official version, notwithstanding, JD (U) sources still seen close to Nitish confirm that all hadn’t been well between the CM and the Munger MP for some time now, largely owing to the perception that Lalan was swerving towards the RJD and had, as JD (U) president, failed to effectively push Nitish’s claim for the post of INDIA bloc’s convenor and, eventually, its PM face against Modi.

All eyes on Nitih's next move

However, now that Nitish is back as JD(U) chief for the second time in the life of his two-decade-old party, the question foremost in the minds of political observers is bound to be what the Bihar CM’s next move could be. With an extremely elastic conscience, the ideologically promiscuous Nitish has never had trouble oscillating his party’s alliance between a communal BJP and a secular RJD-Congress combine whenever he sensed a threat to his political ambitions.

His evidently self-aggrandizing politics may have dented Nitish’s credibility with the electorate, making him appear as just another power-hungry politician with no ideological convictions, but it hasn’t stopped rumours about him exploring a rekindling of ties with the BJP, should Lalu in Bihar or the Congress and other partners in the INDIA bloc stunt his ambitions. For now, though, the BJP and the JD (U) have both vociferously rejected any possibility of a reunion between the former allies but Nitish’s past has proved, more than once, that such denials carry little weight.

JD(U) leaders who claim to have some insight into Nitish’s plans for the immediate future maintain that his decision to return as party president has less to do with the possibility of realigning with the BJP and is more a tactic to ensure that he doesn’t get a raw deal from his INDIA partners. That Nitish had been angling for the still undecided post of INDIA bloc’s convenor and has been unhappy with it not coming his way has been speculated about ad nauseam ever since the Opposition’s alliance started taking shape following his proactive steps.

Has Nitish walked out of INDIA alliance meet? 

At the last INDIA conclave that took place in New Delhi on December 19, it was also wildly speculated that the Bihar CM had walked out in a huff after Trinamool Congress’ Mamata Banerjee and Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal pitched for Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge as the still-evolving coalition’s PM face. Though Nitish had junked these rumours soon after, several of his colleagues have continued to stress that the Bihar CM, with his vast political and administrative experience, is best suited to lead the INDIA bloc’s broadside against the BJP; more so since it was he who convinced Banerjee and Kejriwal to talk business with the Congress.

On Friday too, when asked if his new party chief was angling for the post of INDIA convenor and eventually the PM candidate of the bloc, Tyagi told reporters that Nitish was the “Prime Minister and convenor of all ideas” of the Opposition coalition.

A senior minister in the Bihar government and close aide of Nitish told The Federal, “Nitish is committed to the INDIA bloc and there is no truth to these rumours planted by the BJP of him wanting to return to the NDA… on the one hand, people are claiming that Nitish has assumed the party’s presidency to give heft to claim for the PM’s post and, on the other, they are saying he will return to the NDA… is this not contradictory? If he has PM ambitions, is the NDA going to fulfil it when everyone knows there PM face is (Narendra) Modi.”

INDIA bloc action plan

Sources cutting across the JD (U), RJD and the Congress claimed that more plausible reasons for Nitish taking over from Lalan as party chief are his desire to be taken more seriously by the INDIA bloc, be given a clear and prominent role in the coalition and, most importantly, to safeguard the electoral interests of his party when seat-sharing negotiations begin with the allies.

It is pertinent to note that Nitish’s return as JD (U) chief also coincided with the Congress indicating that the five-member National Alliance Committee set up by Kharge earlier this month to negotiate seat-sharing agreements would start formal discussions with INDIA partners next week. Leaders at the JD (U) national executive as well as Shiv Sena (Uddhav faction) leader Sanjay Raut, have urged the Congress to “show a big heart” and not be “driven by ego” while negotiating seats while, contrary to the spirit of the alliance, Banerjee has made it known that her Trinamool Congress wants to contest all Lok Sabha seats in Bengal.

The warnings from these allies came as Congress’s National Alliance Committee, which includes party veterans Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, Mukul Wasnik, Salman Khurshid and Mohan Prakash, began internal discussions with leaders of various Congress state units to assess their expectations and aspirations regarding seat-sharing with INDIA partners.

Alliance equations

Some in the JD(U) believe that the RJD, which wants to see Tejashwi installed as Bihar CM ever since Nitish returned as its alliance partner, may want to gang up with the Congress to shrink the share of seats given to their party in the negotiations for Bihar’s 40 Lok Sabha constituencies. The electoral footprint of the JD (U) had shrunk drastically in the 2020 Bihar assembly polls when, as an alliance partner of the BJP at the time, it managed to win just 43 seats; far behind the RJD’s 75 and the BJP’s 74. The RJD’s current strength in the 243-member Bihar assembly is 79 MLAs while JD (U) has 45 and the Congress 19.

Sources say the RJD wants to use the 2020 poll results as the yardstick for seat-sharing talks with the JD (U) since Lalu’s party had failed to win a single Lok Sabha seat in 2019. The Congress, undoubtedly the weakest link in the coalition, has reportedly been demanding 10 but could be persuaded to settle for six seats, provided the RJD and not JD (U) stands to benefit from such an arrangement.

Nitish, for reasons that are obvious, is opposed to such a formula and would have the RJD and his party too, at best, contest an equal share of seats. With Lalan reportedly veering towards the RJD, the Bihar CM, said sources, believed the Munger MP could not be trusted to negotiate seat sharing on behalf of the JD (U) with the other allies, which also include the Left parties in Bihar. As such, it was important for Nitish to wrest control of the party’s top post in haste before negotiations with his allies began.

Of course, whether this is an accurate appraisal of Nitish’s motivations behind unseating Lalan is still hearsay and the wily CM is known to keep his cards close to his chest. Whether his latest moves are limited to securing greater heft and a higher bargaining power within the INDIA coalition or to prepare ground for returning to his old ally, the BJP, is still an open0ended question. What is certain, though, is that Nitish Kumar has once again stirred the political cauldron in Bihar – and beyond, just before 2024 ushers in.