17 March 2013, 06:53 PM IST
What did Nitish Kumar really achieve with his rally in Delhi? In spite of the valiant attempts of assorted pundits on TV to invest what he said and what he did not say with profound, even if only pregnant, meaning, the rally did not lift even one of the several veils of ambivalence that cover up the true face of this clever politician from Bihar.
He wants special status for Bihar. If this were a genuine demand of the state government, why would his deputy chief minister, Sushil Modi, be not present on the dais with him, to back the demand. After all, no politician in Bihar would have a problem backing the demand for special funds for the state, arising from being accorded special status. But Sushil Modi is from the BJP, and the rally is a political project of the Janata Dal (United), Nitish Kumar's party, through which Nitish wants to bargain with the BJP.
And what does Nitish want from the BJP? It wants the BJP not to declare Modi as its candidate for prime minister in the 2014 elections. Nitish Kumar's position in Bihar is delicate. He dare not go it alone, he needs a biggish ally. The BJP is the right size and brings in the right social groups, meaning the social groups that his own JD(U) does not rally. While the state's Muslims would be willing to go along with him and the JD(U) in state-level politics, where they can count on the JD(U)'s upper hand and the relatively benign reputation of Sushil Modi to guard against communal violence. But there is no reason for them to stomach Narendra Modi as future prime minister. That is why Nitish has made a fetish of distancing himself from Modi. Now if the BJP were to declare Modi as its PM candidate before the elections, Nitish would find it difficult to keep the alliance with the BJP going. That would push him into a desperate corner.
So he makes a play that he could switch sides and join up with the UPA. Whoever grants Bihar a special category status would get his support, he said last September, with remarkable political acumen, it may be noted. With the central government making some noises that suggest that it is not averse to addressing Bihar's extreme backwardness with some special treatment, Nitish's ploy has acquired some plausibility. So, the demand for Bihar's special category status becomes a threat to his alliance partner not to upset the political balance in Bihar by anointing Narendra Modi as the BJP's leader in 2014.
But Nitish has not made his threat explicit. He has contrasted his vision of development with Narendra Modi's, underlining his differences with the BJP's posterboy on this vital issue apart from communalism. Nitish wants to stand for inclusion, disputes the India vs Bharat thesis. All this simultaneously also makes his position closer to the Congress-led UPA's.
But all this is old hat. He has not moved one step closer towards the UPA, that is, not taken one step away from the NDA.
But apart from seeking to influence the timing of his partner's choice of prime minister, what else has the rally achieved? It has served to reinforce the JD(U)'s identity as a political formation with some autonomous space for itself. In case the 2014 elections throw up a completely fractured verdict, the rally makes it clear, the JD(U) and Nitish Kumar would be in the fray to play kingmaker, if not king.
But does the UPA have space for Nitish Kumar? Only if the Congress can bring about a truce between Lalu Yadav and Nitish. The Congress by itself does not have the numbers to take the BJP's place in case the JD(U) severs its ties with the BJP before the assembly elections due in 2015. That is unlikely. Lalu is busy mobilising people against the JD(U)'s misrule in the state. This leaves Nitish Kumar with no option but to continue with the BJP. If Modi is not the BJP's officially declared PM candidate, Nitish can continue with the arrangement and hope to put up a reasonably good show in the parliamentary elections in 2014. This, he hopes, will give him leverage to continue with his alliance of convenience in Bihar, regardless of whoever forms the government in Delhi.
The trouble is that the BJP also knows all these calculations, and knows that Nitish has no real options but to stick with his alliance with the BJP. Whether it chooses to call his bluff or not is a function of the BJP's own internal squabbles. If those who are still hopeful of being in the race for PM candidature other than Modi have a reasonable say, they could cite Nitish's discomfiture to hold the party's announcement of a candidate before the elections.
In the meantime, reports of broken governance and intensive media management increasingly make it out of Bihar. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Papu Yadav and Anand Mohan Singh continue to run their fiefs from within their prison cells. A series of additional development functionaries Nitish has appointed, called some Sevak or the other, reportedly have added to the predatory burden on the development funds meant for the state's poor.
Restoration of law and order and functional administration are what Bihar needs to develop. Their absence is what makes Bihar underdeveloped. Bringing in governance is a function of local politics, not funds from the Centre. This is the plain and simple truth that loud bluster at the Delhi rally tries to cover up.
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