Nitish Kumar has gone silent again: Why Bihar is about to see major political upheavals
Bihar politics has always thrown surprises whenever chief minister Nitish Kumar has gone silent. This time again, he is maintaining a mysterious silence but his actions suggest he is busy preparing some "contingency plan".
As the differences between the two National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners - Janata Dal United (JDU) and the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) come to the surface, Kumar has gone all out to strengthen his vote bank before it's too late. For this, he is back to aggressively wooing Muslims and women, who played a significant role in retuning him to power earlier in 2015.
Kumar knows he has switched sides twice in the past five years - from NDA to the three-party Grand Alliance and then back to the NDA. And, if he does it again, his credibility would be completely at risk but it's also a fact that he is not getting the kind of respect he had expected from the BJP, the local media has reported.
While he feels cornered within the BJP, the Hindu nationalist party has also accused the Nitish Kumar government of acting with bias against the majority community in the aftermath of communal flare-ups in the state. Strangely, a delegation of the BJP leaders met Bihar's director general of police, KS Dwivedi, and lodged a formal complaint with him. Never during the 20-month-regime of the Grand Alliance, either Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) or the Congress questioned his intention but barely after eight months of sharing power together, the BJP has raised a big question mark over the credibility of the chief minister, exposing their relations.
Kumar is the kind of politician who never tolerated anyone who interfered with his work or questioned his authority. His track record of the past 24 years says so. He ruthlessly dealt with George Fernandes, once his mentor and party boss, Digvijaya Singh and more recently Sharad Yadav, who challenged his authority. That's not all. He even broke alliance with the BJP in 2013 because his ego got hurt when Narendra Modi was projected as NDA's prime ministerial candidate.
He lost the 2014 Lok Sabha polls badly in his home turf but soon joined hands with his arch-rival Lalu Prasad to avenge his defeat in 2015 Bihar Assembly polls. He emerged as the winner with Lalu's support but when it appeared that the growing popularity of Lalu's younger son Tejashwi Yadav will finally eclipse his political career, he made an about-turn and returned to the BJP camp, perhaps forgetting the fact it is being led by Narendra Modi.
While choices look limited for Kumar, he is trying to tackle the situation in his own style. Instead of reacting to the BJP "agenda" which was on display during the Ram Navami celebrations, Kumar has started aggressively wooing both the Muslims and women in the event of the two partners finally parting ways.
His strategy came to fore when his government released Rs 2.13 lakh to repair a mosque and madarsa damaged by the rampaging mob during the recent communal violence in the state and also paying the compensation to the victims of communal violence despite objections from the BJP. That's not all. Kumar has also pledged to appoint Urdu teachers in each high school, strengthen madarsa infrastructure and provide scholarships to madarsa students as well.
The announcements came even as the state continued burning in the communal heat, surprising even the BJP. However, there is a problem with Kumar. Experts say, Muslims who constitute some 16 per cent of Bihar's population may back him only when he snaps alliance with the BJP.
The JDU chief has also launched a series of attempts to woo the vast community of women. The recent one being the state government's announcement to slash fees for female candidates applying for government jobs in Bihar. This means the female candidates will have to shell out only Rs 150, instead of Rs 600, for sitting in preliminary exams and Rs 200, instead of earlier Rs 750, for main examinations.
Last year, the Nitish Kumar government had granted 35 per cent reservation to women in allotment of public distribution system (PDS) shops. Bihar has a total number of 42,000 PDS shops. Earlier, the state government had granted 35 per cent reservation to women in all government jobs, equal percentage of reservation in police recruitment and another 50 per cent reservation in local bodies' polls. The government has already imposed total prohibition in the state to check incidents of domestic violence.
The JDU leadership feels the idea could work wonders for the party even if the party went alone in the next Assembly election. A series of recent political developments indicate the JDU headed by Kumar is exploring all options. For example, the chief minister has been invited as the chief guest at a function being organised by the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) led by Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan. This is the first time that Kumar has been invited to a LJ function to be held in Patna on April 14 to mark the birth anniversary of Dalit icon BR Ambedkar. Paswan himself visited Kumar to extend the invite.
The invitation assumes significance as it was the LJP which had torpedoed Kumar's plan to become the chief minister during 2005 Assembly polls when voters elected a hung House. In the March 2005 elections, Paswan's party won as many as 29 seats but didn't support Kumar. His stubbornness led to imposition of President's Rule in Bihar. In the election held six months later, the LJP's tally shrunk to 10. Kumar later reacted by excluding Paswan's fellow Dusadh caste out of Mahadalit category, thus denying it the benefits of several schemes meants for the most backward castes.
The Mahadalit Commission, formed by the Nitish Kumar government in 2007, had initially recommended inclusion of 18 of the 22 sub-castes as Mahadalits. The four castes - Dusadh (or Paswan community), Ravidas, Pasi and Dhobi - were kept out.
Later, three castes, except Dusadh, were included in the category which indicates the level of animosity between Kumar and Paswan. But they have buried the hatchet now and are meeting again. Bihar could well be headed for more political upheavals.