With a loyal voter base, Nitish Kumar remains invaluable NDA member for now

Now it's all jibes about his chameleon-like politics and fading grip on the administration. But there was a time Nitish had the BJP trembling in the state

A recent conversation with a Dalit member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Bihar revealed new truths about the upcoming Assembly poll in the state. The MLA, from the Samastipur region, is a mathematician who was also a full-time pracharak in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) till his service was sought by the BJP to fight the panchayat and later the 2020 Assembly elections. He is an influential Dalit voice in the BJP. 

“We really respect Nitishji (Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar): Not just for his commitment to social justice but also for the way he lives. He has no family. In all these years, there have been no corruption charges against him. Everything he’s had, he’s given to Bihar. In this aspect, he represents the values we in the RSS have been taught,” he said, about the man who is leading his party, the Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), in fighting what could be his last election. 

Now it is all jibes about his chameleon-like politics and a loosening grip over the administration. But there was a time Nitish had the BJP trembling in the state. Veterans recall that in 2006 the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) declared that singing “Vande Mataram” (the lyric occurs in a 19th century Bengali novel that has disparaging remarks about Muslims) must be made compulsory in government-run schools. Nitish refused to implement this in Bihar, though his party was part of the NDA. 

During the BJP’s national executive meeting held in Patna in June 2010, full-page advertisements appeared in local dailies with Nitish thanking Narendra Modi, then Gujarat chief minister, for ₹5 crore as flood-relief aid. Furious at the portrayal of Bihar as a kind of mendicant, Nitish cancelled a dinner he was to host for BJP leaders [the hapless Sanjay Jha, current working president of the JD(U) and Union minister, was the bearer of the dis-invitation to Mr Modi]. Nitish also returned the ₹5 crore to the Gujarat government. His party broke its alliance with the BJP-led NDA soon after Mr Modi was appointed the BJP’s chief of the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign committee in 2013. 

 

Now they’re friends again, though the BJP is watching moves in the JD(U) carefully, especially succession. For the BJP, the JD(U) needs to continue to exist as an entity. Bihar’s Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) and the Kurmi and Keori castes are still solidly behind Nitish. Because of social contradictions, they are unlikely to come to the BJP. Nitish has tried to build up alternative Kurmi leaders who could have taken the reins after him. R C P Singh, civil servant-turned-politician and a Kurmi, was one such. His ambition got the better of him. In the BJP’s assessment, the next best is current Bihar Minister Shravan Kumar, who has been MLA from Nalanda for more than seven terms. His loyalty to Nitish is unquestionable and so is his grip over his community. Mr Jha and Vijay Kumar Chaudhry are influential in the party and have Nitish’s ear. But they are upper-caste. Others have their eye on the JD(U)’s social base too: The appointment of Mangani Lal Mandal, of the Dhanuk caste (EBC), as president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD’s) Bihar unit is strategic. 

In the BJP’s assessment, in this election Hindutva is best kept on the back-burner. To be sure, the party will frame issues of Bangladeshi infiltration, especially in areas like Kishanganj, which has a 65 per cent Muslim population. But this is not the time to rock the boat on religious issues, because the alliance with Nitish has brought Muslim support to the NDA, however small. Instead, the appeal will be on governance and Nitish’s efforts over successive governments, especially his first tenure, to create administrative capacity in the state. It is no coincidence, for instance, that women’s representation in the police force in Bihar is now among the highest in India (24 per cent) and has grown 2 per cent just between 2022 and 2024. This is in part the result of the investment by Nitish in girls’ education in his various tenures as chief minister. 

Prohibition is non-negotiable and those who argue against it, including former BJP Member of Parliament like R K Singh, don’t understand the ground reality, the party feels. Despite all the gaps and leakages in implementing prohibition, the BJP believes that just on this issue, the vote of women overrides caste. Regional issues like the development of Mithilanchal to prevent migration are also going to be framed as issues of growth in Bihar. 

If the combined Modi-Nitish effort leads to a windfall for the BJP but not the JD(U), could Nitish be cut out of the equation altogether? No one is answering this question. But as they say in corporate-speak, for now “Nitish Kumar is an invaluable member of the team”.