Panicky BJP groping in the dark for a name to succeed Nitish Kumar

Nervousness grips the top brass of the Bharatiya Janata Party as it is struggling over the chief ministerial face for Bihar, where the Assembly election is due in October-November.

If Union Home Minister Amit Shah, during the visit to Bihar on March 30 (and again later), declared that the election would be held under the leadership of none else than Nitish Kumar, in a function in the
National Capital Region on April 13, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, said that the BJP would win the Assembly election under the stewardship of Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary. The latter
was sharing the dais with Saini then.

On the other hand, former Union Minister of State for Health Ashwini Choubey, on April 10, said that keeping in mind his vast experience, Nitish Kumar should be elevated to the post of Deputy Prime Minister. He had also said that Nitish’s son, Nishant Kumar, should be named as the chief ministerial candidate of Bihar.

Testing the political water

Independent observers are of the view that the BJP is using Nayab Singh Saini and Ashwini Choubey to test the political water and gauge the mood of the Janata Dal (United). Saini has little to do
with Bihar politics, while Choubey is, in all practical purposes, a rejected man. He was denied the party ticket from his parliamentary constituency, Buxar, in 2024 and is striving hard to make a
comeback or at least ensure a ticket for his son for the Assembly election. So, he can eagerly do what his party’s central leadership wants him to do.

It needs to be remembered that Choubey was the strongest critic of Nitish when he was a minister in his cabinet before June 16, 2013. It was on this day that the chief minister sacked all 11 BJP ministers and snapped 17 long years of relationship with the saffron party. Choubey had further toughened his stand against Nitish. So, when of late he is floating his name for the post of deputy PM of India, one needs to understand his real compulsion.

Samrat Chaudhary’s u-turn

What is curious is that a day later, on April 14, Samrat Chaudhary told mediapersons in Patna that the BJP would once again come to power in Bihar under the leadership of Nitish Kumar. He spoke on the sidelines of a function organized on the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti, where the chief minister was also present.

Till January 22, 2024, Samrat Chaudhary, then the state BJP chief, was the bitter opponent of Nitish and was demanding his arrest. He had also vowed that he would not remove his ‘pagdi’ (headgear) till he got Nitish removed. It is another thing that six days later, he took oath as deputy CM under the same Nitish, whom he had been abusing day in and day out.

The National Democratic Alliance may be trying to put up a brave face, yet the truth is that there is utter confusion and uncertainty within the rank and file of both the Janata Dal (United) and the BJP. The crisis revolving around the health of the chief minister is not dying down.

It is for this reason that Nishant Kumar, on April 15, once again asserted that the NDA would fight under the leadership of his father, who would continue to hold his post after the election. He claimed that his father is in the best of health. He further added that Amit (Shah) ‘Uncle’ had also said that the Assembly election would be held with Nitish as the chief minister and that the latter would continue to serve even after it.

If this is really the situation, why did Choubey and Saini indirectly question the leadership of Nitish at this point? By speaking in so many ways, the BJP top echelon has exposed that everything is
not hunky dory within the NDA.

Biggest headache

If the election were fought under the leadership of perfectly healthy Nitish Kumar, the BJP would have to willingly or unwillingly leave half of the seats for the Janata Dal (United)—it contested 122
out of a total of 243 in 2020. That is the biggest headache because Nitish’s party is not in a position to improve on the last time’s performance, in which it won only 43 seats.

And if JD (U) is persuaded or compelled to contest fewer seats, say 90-100, it may send a wrong signal to the voters.

If in the best of health, in 2020 Nitish could secure a win in only 43 seats for his party, how can he increase the tally now when he is not in control of the situation? The problem with the BJP in Bihar is that it cannot play the Maharashtra card of last year, as the saffron party alone performed exceedingly well there. The BJP had won more than 130 seats out of 288 and had in former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis a prominent figure. In Bihar, Samrat Chaudhary, a known party-hopper, is no match to the status of Fadnavis, or for that matter, any Bihar BJP leader of the past, such as late Sushil Kumar Modi. Samrat Chaudhary lacks credibility and has hardly any acceptance within the old guards of the party, as it was none else than the BJP that had in 1999 launched a massive campaign for his ouster from the Rabri Devi government. He was then in the RJD and was charged with having a fake birth certificate.

At the same time, Nitish is no Eknath Shinde, who was shown his place. If any such mistreatment is meted out to him, he may end up joining hands with the same Tejashwi Prasad Yadav. Given his record
Nitish can go to the extent of supporting Tejashwi as the CM, as in the past, he had on a couple of occasions proclaimed in a public function that this young RJD leader would be his successor.

True, the BJP has the history of making any Tom, Dick and Harry as the CM, but all this is possible in the states where it alone won a massive majority, such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Delhi,
Odisha, etc. In Bihar, last time it could win only 74 seats out of 121 it contested—the main opposition RJD won 75 alone. This time, there is no chance of the BJP’s tally going up. If the JD (U)
wins around 25-30 seats, then the NDA will not be in a position to form the government.

Dalit factor

The Lok Janshakti Party of Chirag Paswan and Hindustani Awam Morcha of Jitan Ram Manjhi, both Union Ministers and Dalits, are demanding more seats this time.

Mind it, late LJP supremo, Ram Vilas Paswan, who died on October 8, just three weeks before the 2020 Assembly election, though still a minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet, instructed his son Chirag to
contest separately as his party was not getting the number of seats sought by him. This decision of LJP badly damaged the poll prospects of the JD (U) and, to some extent, of the BJP too. Throughout the
corona lockdown, Ram Vilas strongly lambasted Nitish for doing nothing.

As there are so many contradictions within the NDA partners in Bihar, the BJP is finding it extremely difficult to put the house in order. Chirag and Manjhi know that Nitish has grown quite weak and his arms can be twisted in the name of Dalit votes, which are up for grabs.

Pasis, the Dalit caste of toddy-sellers, are on the warpath against the Nitish government’s prohibition policy. They have turned their loyalty towards the RJD. Other Dalit castes, such as Manjhi’s Musahars, are
also at the receiving end of the liquor ban policy. Manjhi had repeatedly been alleging that the prohibition had failed completely and only Dalits and the backwards are victimized in its name. The big fish are just prospering.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Bihar on April 24 for the fourth time since November 13, against this increasingly grim background.

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