In Bihar a re-alignment of mutual convenience

It is often said that the more things change the more they remain the same. Within Nitish Kumar being sworn in as a NDA chief Minister in Bihar, politics seems to have come full circle! Nitish's brief four year estrangement with the BJP has ended once again cementing the binds of a fourteen year alliance.

The JD(U)-BJP alliance in Bihar is clearly a bonding of mutual convenience. For Nitish his Grand alliance with the RJD and Congress had reached a dead-end and clearly had no future. To preserve his image as Mr Clean, he had no choice to break with his Mahagatbandhan partners.

The RJD and Congress leadership had fondly hoped that in order to remain in power and preserve the sanctity of the 2015 Bihar mandate, destabilize the alliance government. In a political masterstroke, Nitish has defended his moves in the last twenty hours as being in the best interests of the state of Bihar.

The alacrity with which the BJP leadership moved in to applaud Nitish's decision to resign and support a JDU-BJP government was indicative of the game plan of the ruling party at the centre to gain maximum political advantage from the visible crumbling of the anti-BJP alliance.

By this adroit move, the BJP has clearly placed itself in a decisive advantage to return to power in 2019. The leader who was projected as a possible Prime Ministerial candidate of the anti-BJP alliance has today made peace with the BJP and is quite content with being the Chief Minister of his state, by returning to an old alliance partner. Truly, politics has its many subtle twists and dramatic turns.

Ever since, Nitish Kumar opposed the nomination of Narendra Modi as the Prime Ministerial candidate of the NDA and walked out of the alliance, the ball was clearly in his court to mend fences.

If one reviews the BJP's electoral campaign in Bihar during the 2014 Lok Sabah elections and the 2015 Assembly polls, the main focus of the attack was on Lalu Prasad Yadav and the Congress with very mild criticisms of Nitish Kumar. The BJP had always kept open a window of opportunity to re-stitch the alliance with the JDU. The BJP also realized that timing and pace of the reconciliation would have to be left to Nitish Kumar.

The Bihar alliance of 2015 between the JDU, RJD and the Congress was stitched together as both a social coalition of backward caste group and a political alliance aimed at isolating the BJP. Given his inability to enter the electoral contest, Lalu Prasad Yadav was left with limited choices but to back Nitish for the leadership of the anti-BJP front.

When the alliance won the elections, Nitish faced his first political challenge when the RJD secured more assembly seats than the JDU and Lalu was able to ensure that one of his sons was made the Deputy Chief Minister and another a Cabinet minister. Nitish was left with no option but to accept this arrangement. During the two years in power, there were many occasions when Nitish indicated his intentions to keep his political options open.

His support for demonetization and surgical strikes were pointers to the same. When he categorically ruled himself out as a Prime Ministerial candidate and characterized the 2014 Lok Sabha election result as a vote for Modi as Prime Minister, the moment of reconciliation appeared fast approaching. When his Deputy Chief Minister got embroiled in serious corruption charges, Nitish had to make an important choice. Would he let the issue simmer and restrain from taking any action or would this be the moment to reassess his political options. By supporting the BJP Presidential candidate, Nitish was clearly testing the political waters.

Nitish possibly realized that if he hesitated in taking a strong line against corruption it would weaken his carefully crafted image and also allow the BJP to go on the offensive. Further, it can also be argued that two years of working with the RJD and Congress had convinced Nitish that the way the fourteen year JDU-BJP alliance had worked was much better in terms of the smooth relations between the alliance partners. A fig-leaf could always be found to work around Nitish's stand on communalism and his strong comments against the BJP central leadership.

As Nitish Kumar takes oath as Bihar Chief Minister leading a JDU-BJP alliance, it appears to be a win-win situation for the alliance partners. However, it can be argued that while Nitish appears to be the immediate beneficiary of the alliance the long term political dividends will be encashed by the BJP.

There is no doubt that Nitish will have a free hand in managing Bihar and one would see a free flow of fiscal resources and other benefits from the Centre to the state. In the previous JDU-BJP government in the state, there were hardly any pinpricks in terms of the working of the Cabinet and the relationship between the Chief Minister and his Deputy.

Nitish clearly retained the initiative and one sees no reason for the same trend to continue. Yet, in the long run would Nitish be able to sustain the social coalition that has supported the JDU with this new alignment is an important point that would play out in the future.

By bringing over Nitish to the NDA, the BJP has clearly stolen a march over the opposition by successfully dividing and weakening it on the one hand and depriving it of a charismatic leader on the other.

Given the directionless drift in the Congress party, the opposition space was increasingly being occupied by state based leaders, like Nitish Kumar, Arvind Kejriwal and Mamta Banerjee. It is no coincidence that Mamta and Kejriwal decided to sit together in the back rows at the swearing in ceremony of the new President.

It is indicative of the fact that those opposed to the present ruling dispensation at the Centre would need to avoid taking centre-stage and carefully plan their strategy. They have lost an important leader in Nitish Kumar and emerging as a viable alternative to the ruling coalition before 2019 appears a herculean task.

(Dr. Sandeep Shastri is a leading political scientist)