Nitish has his job cut out

With a few months to go for assembly elections, he needs to bring governance back on the rails, pacify restive youth

As Nitish Kumar gets ready to become the chief minister of Bihar for the third time, he has a difficult job on his hands. He may have won the battle of political relevance, but the cost has been enormous.

With just a few months to go for the assembly elections, he will have to bring governance back on the rails and pacify the state’s restive youth. He will also have to negotiate complicated caste equations. Kumar has to decide whether to draw the line at decisions taken by his protégé, the outgoing Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi,  or better them. Either way, it will not be easy. In the last week the Manjhi cabinet took more than 100 populist decisions that have been welcomed by different segments of society.

A Janata Dal (United) leader said: “Even if Manjhi is gone, his name (and deeds) will not be easily forgotten. What Nitish could not do in eight years, he did in just a fortnight. Even if he did not know how to talk, his decisions struck a chord with the common man. Manjhi will be Kumar’s biggest competitor in the days to come.”

Analysts feel that earlier Kumar had a smooth ride because he had no competitor. But this time he needs to deliver in a window of a few months. The much-needed support from Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress MLAs will make the journey more uncomfortable.

He will have to implement the schemes of the Manjhi government with limited financial resources. These schemes include reservation for scheduled caste and tribe contractors in the government’s work contract system, reservation for the poor sections of the upper castes, free electricity to small farmers, a 10-fold increase in allowances for home guard staff, pay hikes for policemen, 35 per cent reservation for women in government jobs, and a committee to assign a pay scale to more than 300,000 teachers on contract.

“No government can reverse or go slow on these schemes in an election year. Kumar has to implement them and for this he will have to ask for central assistance. The central government has already cut Rs 11,000 crore assistance to the state. Given his turbulent relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it is unlikely Kumar will seek money from him,” said a political analyst.

But the biggest loss is that of political capital. For all practical purposes, Kumar has now been reduced to second-in-command in the Janata Dal (U)-Rasjtriya Janata Dal-Congress combine in the state and Lalu Prasad is the man to watch out for in this grouping. With the unceremonious departure of Manjhi, Kumar has also lost the vestiges of the mahadalit vote bank.

“Kumar will have to work hard to regain lost ground,” said one of his former supporters, “Bihar’s state domestic product growth rate has already declined to 8 per cent  from the double digits. Crime figures have shot up in the last few months. Cases of exploitation of dalits and women have risen,” he added.