Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is caught between the devil and the deep sea. Kumar’s party, Janata Dal-United (JD-U), has downplayed the significance of Tuesday’s meeting between Kumar and his deputy, Tejashwi Yadav, an accused in the land-for-hotels corruption case.
Kumar must drop Yadav from his Cabinet if he wants to show that he is intolerant of corruption. But he seems not to be able to muster the courage to sack Yadav for fear of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) withdrawing support to his government.
Kumar’s conscience hardly permits him to crawl back to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) if the RJD withdraws support to the state government in case Yadav is asked to step down.
Neither can the chief minister be comfortable with the United Progressive Alliance because the credibility of the Congress and the RJD has nosedived.
The Bharatiya Janata Party need not woo or mollycoddle Kumar to return to the NDA. At the same time, the NDA should keep its door open for the JD-U if it comes back on its own volition.
K V Seetharamaiah Hassan
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