Artful twists

Nitish Kumar has proved himself to be a survivor, but his position has weakened after every battle

- PRATUL SHARMA AND V.V. BINU

On the muggy monsoon evening of July 26, 2017, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar called his ally, the Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad. He told Lalu that he was calling him for the last time and was going to resign as chief minister and sever ties with the RJD.

Goodbyes are not permanent, not in politics, and certainly not in Bihar. Last month, Kumar called on Lalu in hospital and offered to foot the medical bills. After the RJD supremo was discharged, an alliance was reforged by the two parties. Kumar had decided to break his Janata Dal (United)’s alliance with the BJP. On August 10, before taking oath as chief minister of Bihar for the eighth time, Kumar once again called his friend-turned-foe-turned-friend to brief him about the details of the pact between their parties.

Both in 2017 and 2022, allies could sense Kumar’s unease, but did not really know whether he would dump them. The key difference is that last time the BJP had offered support, while this time Kumar had sounded out the grand alliance partners.

The BJP and the JD(U) had been drifting apart for some time now. The BJP’s recent national executive meeting in Hyderabad called for targeting opposition parties, particularly the regional ones, for being dynastic and corrupt. The coup by Shiv Sena rebel Eknath Shinde in Maharashtra, which coincided with the meeting, unnerved the regional outfits.