The Nitish Kumar Overtures: Why BJP Must Play Its Cards Carefully

This columnist had written earlier that it would make a lot of sense for both Nitish Kumar and the BJP to come together in Bihar. The Janata Dal United (JDU) supremo has quite brazenly broken ranks with the rest of the Opposition and has announced support to Ram Nath Kovind – the presidential candidate of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) who is now expected to sail through in the election slated to be held during the Monsoon Session of Parliament, commencing from 17 July 2017.

A sitting legislator of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has accused Kumar of having ‘defrauded’ any and everybody he has ever been politically associated with. Add to this, the JDU’s studied silence over corruption allegations and investigations against RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and his family, one can safely conclude that Kumar is not just flirting, but playing some very serious footsie with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, the big question is whether it makes sense for the saffron party to now bend over backwards to welcome Kumar to its fold or it should adopt a more cautious approach.

Canny operator that he is, Kumar knows that his image has indeed been sullied of late because of his association with the RJD, although the ratings of his government remain high. He also knows that if the alliance with the RJD continues, there is a very real chance that the mahagathbandhan as a whole might lose some loyal voters. Add to this, a significant number of people who would like to see Narendra Modi as Prime Minister and him as Chief Minister, and a scenario where he emerges to be as irrelevant to national politics post the 2019 general election as he was after the one before that starts to seem eminently possible. Given the sort of opportunistic politics that he has practised throughout his career, piggybacking on those who were stronger than him, it seems unlikely that his overtures to the BJP are attributable to a genuine change of heart.

From the BJP's point of view, welcoming Kumar on his terms to the NDA fold is an easy choice. However, BJP must ensure that any arrangement that is worked out in the future comes with a promise by Kumar that in 2020 the BJP gets the chief minister's post in Bihar, in exchange for one of the big three ministerial portfolios at the Centre for Kumar – preferably the Defence Ministry.

There can be absolutely no doubt that the incumbent Chief Minister is an able administrator and has a reputation of being relatively less corrupt in financial terms. He has also been Bihar's Chief Minister for more than 12 years now, and would have completed more than a decade-and-a-half in the saddle by the time the next Vidhan Sabha election comes along. In view of this, it also makes ample sense for Kumar to finally play a much bigger role at the national stage than he did during Atal Behari Vajpayee’s tenure as prime minister.

However, as reiterated earlier, he may pressurise the BJP to ensure that the latter’s state unit plays second fiddle to his motley bunch in Bihar. This is where the central leadership of BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh should take a firm position. They should not make the mistake of selling out the Bihar BJP unit to Kumar as they did during the mid-90s, when the alliance was first forged. Turncoats like Kumar should not be allowed to gain political strength at the expense of the BJP’s own state leadership.

One thing that the 2015 polls have established is that the ruling party at the Centre is now the principle pole around which the politics of Bihar revolves. Whatever the contours may be of the eventual deal with Kumar, it is in BJP's interest to make sure that the process of producing genuine leaders with a mass base continues unabated. Otherwise, the massive gains made by the BJP during the Modi era in Bihar would be lost and that would be a real setback.

Prime Minister Modi is not going to be in active politics forever, and would one day have to hang up his boots. There is also very little possibility that a leader of his national stature would emerge in many years to come. For the sake of the BJP’s and the Hindu nationalist movement’s health in the post-Modi era, the party needs to invest in the health of its respective state units and it cannot be done by means of entering into subservient alliances with leaders like Kumar. The next Narendra Modi for the party will also come from the ranks of the various state units, and Amit Shah and his team must keep this in mind.