A 180° CHURN

Nitish rewrites the political script for Bihar-and perhaps beyond. The BJP, unable to read his googly, has to recalibrate its 2024 strategy

- Amitabh Srivastava and Anilesh Mahajan

Nitish Kumar is about to hold his Monday janata durbar, a weekly interaction in which he meets common people at his residence-1, Anne Marg, Patnato tend to their grievances. From his composure, no one could have guessed the Bihar chief minister was nursing a grievance too-a terminal one. Just before the programme begins, a top state BJP minister arrives on the scene, and asks for an audience. It's granted, and they retreat to one of the inner rooms. Behind closed doors, the BJP leader says: "Sir, if you think some knots have developed in the alliance, I am here to iron out all differences, please share if you have anything in mind." Later that evening, the diplomatic outreach is scaled up to Code Orange levels. Union home minister Amit Shah is on the line with Nitish, one of the BJP's oldest allies, and is at his mollificatory best during the six-minute call. It was a last-ditch attempt to save the game as it had been chalked out-and the desperation was understandable. The BJP-led coalition that rules at the Centre had just rearranged India's political chessboard to its advantage, winning over Maharashtra. But now, another NDA government was at stake...and the chessboard seemed open again.

WHY NITISH SWITCHED SIDES

The second edition of the Nitish-BJP partnership has been fraught from the start, with the latter exhibiting a clear aggressive intent and making no bones about its ambition to eventually supplant Nitish and JD(U)

Even during the elections, the JD(U) suspected the BJP of having strategically fielded Chirag Paswan’s LJP as a vote cutter in all seats JD(U) contested so as to trim its numbers