Nitish Kumar’s deft political posturing

Like fine wine, Nitish Kumar is slowly but surely maturing into the quintessential politician. His latest salvo which has left allies and non-NDA chiefs such as the RJD’s Lalu Prasad and the TMC’s Mamata Banerjee gasping, is to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise salvo on demonetisation. Even though two non-NDA chief ministers — Odisha’s Navin Patnaik and Nitish Kumar — have strongly supported this move, there is speculation mostly about the support of the latter. Following this, there has been growing clamour that Nitish is returning to the NDA, with which he had parted company in 2014 after a 17-year partnership. He had done that over the BJP naming the then Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi, as its prime ministerial candidate. Even within the NDA, Nitish had been strongly opposed to Modi.

The speculation gathered momentum when BJP chief Amit Shah welcomed Nitish’s support; there have also been unconfirmed reports of a secret meeting between the two. But on Sunday the Bihar chief minister put this speculation to rest by categorically denying such a possibility and asserting that the grand alliance in Bihar will last its full five years. Clarifying his position at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, he said, “I am completely against corruption and I support any step against it without giving a thought. I support demonetisation because it is a good step. But then, my support for it should not be given a political interpretation that I am getting closer to the BJP.”

There are several reasons, mostly political, for Nitish’s endorsement of a move that aims to curb the generation of black money. The first is to make a bold statement that he is a clean politician who is against corruption, and has no chest of ill-gotten cash to safeguard. The second reason is connected to Bihar politics. By his endorsement of demonetisation, Nitish is sending a strong signal to his bête noire , and now ally, Lalu Prasad, who is a substantial power centre behind the throne. As he himself can’t contest an election, he has placed his son Tejaswi on the deputy chief minister’s seat, and there is growing clamour from his cronies for a bid to make him chief minister.

Also, according to political observers in Patna, thanks to Lalu’s interference in matters of administration, Nitish is unable to crack down on the law and order situation for which Bihar has been notorious traditionally, but not always fairly. While other States can get away with gruesome acts of violence, the image of Bihar on this front is so abysmal that incidents of violence — crimes, thefts, kidnappings, etc — are given much more prominence in the media. “Bihar has an image problem, period,” a chief secretary of the State had moaned to me in Patna a decade ago, and that is partially true.

While Lalu, convicted for the chara ghotala or fodder scam, is bitterly opposed to demonetisation and has harshly criticised the move, his opposition only raises titters all around as tales of his maha corruption have become legend in Patna. Same is the case for UP satraps such as the Samajwadi Party’s Mulayam Singh and Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati as well as Congress leaders. When they put forth strident criticism of the demonetisation move in the name of the suffering of the aam aadmi , somehow the criticism doesn’t ring true, even to those who feel the Modi government has messed up on the execution, which could have been much much better, in terms of advance printing of an adequate number of new notes, particularly ₹500 notes.

But juxtaposed against these leaders, Nitish, throughout his political career, has enjoyed a clean image, and what better time to reinforce this image as he harbours the ambition to lead the non-NDA alliance in 2019? Also, his support of the anti-corruption move sends out the image of a balanced, mature leader who doesn’t oppose every move of the BJP-led government just for the sake of opposing it.

But, to make a statement that he is not tilting towards the NDA, Nitish has turned down the Government’s invitation to be a member of a sub-committee of chief ministers on digitisation and cashless transactions, chaired by Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu. The other two chief ministers who have also rejected this assignment are Tripura’s Manik Sarkar and Puducherry’s V Narayanasamy. The panel, meant to suggest ways to ease problems arising from the sudden demonetisation move, is now left only with its chairman and the Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan.

So while Mulayam Singh and Mayawati are worried about the coming UP Assembly elections, Nitish, having already conquered Bihar through his maha gatbandhan , has his eyes firmly fixed on 2019. What better opportunity to show his integrity to the people than endorsing a move that is aimed at tackling corruption and black money, such a big scourge in this country.

COMMENT NOW