Bihar CM Nitish Kumar’s sudden resignation Saturday, in the aftermath of his party’s crushing reverses in the Lok Sabha election at the hands of the BJP, opens up new political possibilities in this key Hindi heartland state, and marks out Mr Kumar as a leader of substance — one who is capable of initiating a manoeuvre that may serve his ends but also genuinely appears to derive from a point of principle as the CM quit taking responsibility for his party’s electoral debacle.
In the completely unprincipled terrain of Indian politics, this is not a bad reputation to have, even if Mr Kumar seems down and out at the moment, having just been humbled by a resurgent BJP under the leadership of the Bihar leader’s archadversary, PM-designate Narendra Modi.
Mr Modi and his party seem in complete command of everything at the moment — on the strength of its numbers in Parliament as well as the enormously supportive public mood. But such positive factors are known to evaporate very quickly if things begin to go wrong. In such situations, a senior political figure who has shown moral fibre and grit is never out of consideration from key power equations.
By resigning, Mr Kumar is daring the BJP to have a go at inducing defections from his JD(U). This idea has been debated in top BJP circles for some time, including at the level of the PM-designate. If it’s not been acted on yet, it is possibly because the number of JD(U) MLAs ready to jump ship is not enough to beat the stringent conditions of the anti-defection law.
But the BJP may have another consideration too. Trying to organise defections to take over power in states stinks to high heaven, and Mr Modi may be unwilling to start out as PM on that dubious note and earn the suspicion of state parties, whose help is needed — in the first instance — to run the Rajya Sabha.
If the BJP is lukewarm to the idea of encouraging political defections, dissatisfied JD(U) MLAs may well have a serious rethink and stay put where they are.
By stepping down, Mr Nitish Kumar has also opened up the prospect of a realignment of political forces in Bihar. This means, in effect, the coalescing of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s party RJD and the JD(U) — basically the regrouping of friends-turned-foes. Should this happen, the Congress and the CPI in Bihar may also offer tactical political support.
Whether someone from the RJD leads the revamped “secular” group or not, or whether Mr Kumar is finally persuaded to go back being the state leader, will no doubt be a matter of intense negotiations in Patna. No matter what, we have seen a crucial turn of events in a politically high-value state.
