Third front not dead: Nitish Kumar's exit actually helps Opposition
The new trends of e-commerce encourage people to get rid of things which are not in use at their home or the office. The idea is to keep the rooms clear and clean, without the guns that can’t be used for defence and without the fans which have no air for the owners.
What could be better if these “unwanted”, “bad reads” and “not in use” elements disappear from the cupboards themselves. Nitish Kumar’s departure has this interesting aspect for the Opposition.
It was a myth since the very beginning of the grand alliance that Nitish is part of the Opposition. The unity of the Opposition has Nitish on the list only for running the government in Bihar and nothing else was being achieved by his presence. He continued as CM of the state and the Opposition in their words and dreams kept cherishing the grand alliance as their own victory against Modi.
Since the Bihar election results, Nitish was mostly in silent mode and he spared lesser words to build the chorus of the Opposition against the BJP and Modi in the state and at the Centre-level.
Last year, when the Opposition was shocked and crying in full volume against the decision of demonetisation, Nitish opted to sit on Modi’s side and supported the decision, taken ostensibly to tackle black money in the country.
Not that Nitish didn’t know the dark side of demonetisation, but he never changed his stand on the issue and here the Opposition was fighting against the government without Nitish in their army.
The same happened when Sonia Gandhi tried to bring all like-minded political parties for Opposition unity just before the presidential election. Nitish not only refused to be part of the meeting, he also preferred meeting leaders from the other side. This was again a betrayal of the Opposition which believed Nitish to be one of them.
Nitish’s victory was not his one-man show in Bihar - it was indeed the victory of the grand alliance, with Lalu Prasad’s RJD getting bigger numbers than the JD(U). As the leader of the alliance and chief minister of the state, it was the responsibility of Nitish to call all MLAs of the alliance and the leaders to sort out the issues occurring in the past couple of months.
He, instead of sorting it, explored other options and finally became the CM of the state for the sixth time in a well-curated 14-hour political drama with himself in the lead role. These are a few examples which are enough for anyone to realise that Nitish was never committed to the united Opposition. In fact, he always tried to stand alone and present himself as an independent, free-thinking leader.
Nitish’s betrayal of the grand alliance comes with some interesting developments between the other Opposition parties; Mamata Banerjee is not ready to bow to Modi, Lalu wants Mayawati to contest for the Lok Sabha and come to Parliament again. The “victims” of Modi sarkar are getting closer.
Without Nitish, the Opposition is clearer now; they share similar pains and worries, fear typical patterns of “political vendetta” and all this brings them together more determined and united.
Lastly, Nitish is no more the face of any third alliance. The possibility of emerging as a face for a parallel alliance to the Modi government has been buried in the papers of the oath he took with Sushil Modi - the BJP face of the Bihar government now.
Also read: Key questions Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad must answer