The Bihar CM, known as ‘Sushasan Babu’ is now earning the sobriquet ‘Sulah Babu’.
New Delhi: Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal(United) national president Nitish Kumar, who is known as ‘Sushasan (good governance) babu” is now earning the sobriquet of “Sulah (compromise) babu” in the political circles of Bihar.
Nitish, who was known for his trait of not compromising on issues and aggressively pursuing his demands, has become a pale shadow of his former self, as he continues to tag along with the Bharatiya Janata Party as a member of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), despite the BJP showing no willingness to compromise on its own stand which in many cases are diametrically opposite to that of JDU. The latest such episode, where the will of Nitish and JDU was ignored by BJP, happened when the triple talaq nill was introduced and passed in both Houses of Parliament.
Even though the JDU has been publicly maintaining that it is not willing to “compromise” on “contentious” issues like triple talaq, Articles 370 and 35A, Uniform Civil Code and Ram Mandir, its six Rajya Sabha members on Tuesday, chose to remain absent during the voting on the triple talaq bill rather than stay in the House and vote against the bill.
The same contradiction was reflected a day earlier when in Lok Sabha, 16 JDU MPs walked out of the House before voting on the passage of the bill. Its parliamentary party leader, Rajiv Ranjan Singh, alias Lalan Singh, however, had opposed the bill when it was being debated.
By opposing the bill, the JDU tried to appease the Muslim commun ity and their walking out when the voting took place pleased the BJP as a smooth passage of the bill was facilitated. Political observers believe that the JDU will use the same tactics when Articles 370 and 35A come up for consideration in Parliament.
“The JDU has 16 Lok Sabha members and six Rajya Sabha members, but despite stating that it was against issues like triple talaq, it chose to passively support the bill than register its active opposition. This is not the first time that Nitish has been forced to compromise in the recent past. He himself is responsible for finding himself in such a position where he has little space to manoeuvre”, a Patna based political observer told The Sunday Guardian.
The much talked about special status to Bihar, which was once crucial for Nitish, has been forgotten by him as despite repeated requests, both publicly and privately, the Central government refused to accept it. Similarly, during the centenary celebrations of Patna University in October 2017 Prime Minister Narendra Modi rejected the demand by Nitish Kumar to upgrade the university into a Central University. “The Nitish of the past would not have allowed these requests to be forgotten. However, as things stand now, both these topics are dead,” a senior party leader said.
The leader also recalled how during the Cabinet formation, post the May general elections, Nitish Kumar had come to Delhi with the impression that the then BJP president, Amit Shah would give him at least two ministerial posts, including one Cabinet rank. However, he was given only one post, which he said no to. An upset Nitish attended the swearing in while hiding his anger. However, as soon as he landed in Patna, he carried out his own ministerial reshuffle where he inducted only JDU leaders.
“It was his way of showing his anger but it hardly made any impact on the BJP. When you compare the Nitish of past, with that of the present, you will see that he is now a leader who has accepted that he has to do ‘Sulah’ every other day if he has to remain in power,” said the party leader. In 2010, the same Nitish Kumar, had at the very last moment, cancelled a dinner with top BJP leaders in Patna to express his disapproval about two advertisements that had been published in local newspapers, which featured him with the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and another which depicted the aid provided by Gujarat during the floods that had hit Bihar. Nitish Kumar had called it an “uncivilised” gesture as according to him it boasted of Modi’s “liberal donation to Bihar during the 2008 Kosi floods”. He had returned Rs 5 crore to Gujarat. It was because of Nitish that Modi had stayed away from campaigning in Bihar during the 2009 general elections.
Nitish Kumar first ended his 17 years of his relationship with the BJP in June 2013, in the name of “secularism”, just days after the BJP formally announced in its party executive, held in Goa, that Narendra Modi would be its chairman of the Election Campaign Committee, effectively declaring him as its PM candidate for the 2014 polls.
After performing poorly in the 2014 general elections, Nitish Kumar joined hands with his bete-noire Lalu Yadav and in a three-party alliance with the Congress, which led to the formation of Grand Alliance. Thus, he again came to power in the October 2015 Bihar Assembly polls. However, in less than two years of this “secular” alliance, Nitish dumped Lalu in July 2017 ostensibly because he could not be a part of an alliance which was “indulging in corruption”.
“Nitish is the same person who had resigned as the Railway Minister in August 1999 after the Gaisal train disaster thereby becoming the only second Railway Minister, after Lal Bahadur Shastri, to resign over a train accident. Now he is not even sure that if he takes a principled stand and leaves the NDA, what would his electoral fate will be when the Assembly elections take place next year. In such a situation, he has not option but to compromise,” said a Patna based observer.
However, some observers believe that “Brand Nitish” is still relevant in Bihar as Lalu is almost at the end of his political journey and his legacy is being wasted way.
“Nitish is the only one who can and has successfully made inroads into the Muslim-Yadav vote bank, which the RJD banks on. In this year’s election, all his Yadav candidates won, defeating Lalu’s candidates. A CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey revealed that even though the Muslims voted for RJD and its allies (77% of them voted for the Grand Alliance while only 6% voted for the NDA), yet the JDU candidate in Kishanganj parliamentary seat, which has around 70% Muslim voters, came second, losing by only 30,000 votes behind the Congress. Around 20% of Yadav votes voted for the NDA this time, which can be attributed to Nitish’s good governance in the state,” a Patna based journalist said.