Will he, won’t he? Buzz on Nitish Kumar’s return to NDA fold amid rift in INDIA bloc

PTI, Jan 26, 2024, 8:30 AM IST

BJP leaders on Thursday held hectic meetings amid the possibility of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar joining hands with the party yet again amid his deepening differences with INDIA bloc allies.

Bihar BJP president Samrat Choudhary and other senior leaders from the state, including Sushil Modi and Vijay Kumar Sinha, met the party top brass, including Amit Shah, in the national capital as the buzz grew that they are open to welcome Kumar back into their fold.

Choudhary, though, claimed the meeting was regarding the BJP’s preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

A BJP ally, however, claimed the stage is set for the fall of the grand alliance government in Bihar, and the BJP-led NDA will back Kumar once he breaks his ties with the RJD, the biggest constituent of the INDIA bloc in the state.

JD(U) spokesperson K C Tyagi told reporters in Patna that his party considers itself an architect of the INDIA bloc and asked Congress leaders like Rahul Gandhi and party president Mallikarjun Kharge to address the concerns that partners like Trinamool Congress and Aam Aadmi Party have voiced.

On a day RJD president Lalu Prasad’s daughter Rohini Acharya, through posts on X, took a swipe at Kumar for ”changing his ideology like the wind changes its direction” following the JD(U) president’s swipe at parties promoting family members in politics, a BJP leader well-versed with the state’s politics said the party will be guided by its future political imperatives and not past bitterness.

He, however, noted that any call has to be taken by the party’s top brass.

The BJP has been showing signs of warming up to Kumar, who has swapped his alliance preference between the saffron party and the RJD-Congress-Left camp frequently while remaining in power, with its leaders toning down their criticism of him of late — even praising him at times.

Shah himself sounded more open to such a possibility in a recent interview. Asked about the likelihood of the Janata Dal (U) president’s return to the BJP-led alliance, Shah said the party will consider if such a proposal is ever made.

Earlier, Shah had often asserted the doors had been closed for Kumar’s return to the country’s ruling alliance.

Bihar’s longest-serving chief minister has been cut up with the INDIA bloc for not getting a position in the alliance commensurate with his stature and also favours an early assembly poll to go with the Lok Sabha elections, a suggestion which has not drawn a positive response from the RJD, the biggest party in the state’s ruling alliance, sources said.

JD(U) and RJD leaders have also been sniping at each other amid apprehensions among Kumar’s supporters that their ally has been trying to undermine him in matters of governance as well as politics.

Kumar’s decision to take over as the party president by cutting short the tenure of Lalan Singh was seen as a determined effort by him to take firm control of its organisation amid suggestions by a section of JD(U) leaders that the chief minister’s confidant may have grown too close to the RJD or was pursuing an independent agenda.

The RJD has, however, taken some placatory moves by first agreeing to the relegation of Education Minister Chandra Shekhar to the relatively insignificant portfolio of sugarcane industries.

Acharya also deleted her posts targeting the chief minister without naming him, hours after putting them out. The Bihar BJP accused Acharya, who does not hold any position in the RJD, of insulting Kumar and demanded an apology from her.

The INDIA bloc has been marred by incoherence and distrust, with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann dealing double blows on Wednesday that their parties, the TMC and AAP respectively, will go solo in the Lok Sabha elections expected in April-May.

Signs of disconnect among the INDIA parties in Bihar will suit the BJP in the run-up to the elections as the same alliance had handed it a big defeat in the 2015 assembly polls before Kumar joined hands again with the BJP-led NDA, which then swept the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

He vaulted into the opposition’s alliance in 2022 as the BJP grew increasingly assertive following his party’s sub-par performance in the 2020 assembly polls.

With Kumar’s critics both within the opposition and the BJP being of the view that he has diminished as a political force, experts say it will be interesting to see how the shrewd leader manages to close out yet another round of political gamesmanship as the elections approach.