Nitish Kumar on Tuesday emerged as the most resilient remnant of the Mandal era, surviving the expansionist manoeuvrings of the BJP and the aggressive campaign against his development record by the debutant Tejaswi Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). The 69-year-old socialist, whose plaintive campaign cry of it being his “last election” was seen as a desperate attempt to garner sympathy, will possibly have the last laugh as neither his restive ally nor the ambitious young opponent can ignore his claim for the Chief Minister’s chair for the fourth term.

Even with a shrunken number of about 43 seats and an estimated vote share of 15.13 per cent that has relegated the Janata Dal (United) to the third place behind the RJD and the BJP, which are likely to occupy the first and the second place, Kumar’s ambitious for the top post in the tightly-contested election for the Bihar Assembly. Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who not only supported his candidature but issued a public letter on the last day of the campaign saying that only a “Nitish Kumar-led government in Bihar can ensure development”, and the BJP understand that Kumar may have been cut down to size, but the numbers are too precarious to ignore his centrality in any government-formation bid by the NDA. Even with about 72 seats in its kitty, the BJP still needs the JD(U)’s 43 seats to get to the majority mark of 122 in the 243-member Bihar Assembly.

“Even the Prime Minister had said that Nitish Kumar will be Chief Minister. And so he will be,” said JD(U) leader KC Tyagi, even as the slow counting of votes made it an extremely close contest in Bihar.

Frayed ties with BJP

The JD(U) lost about 28 seats owing to the rise of the Chirag Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), which split from the NDA to contest the Bihar elections on its own and only focussed on fielding candidates in the seats contested by the JD(U). Paswan relentlessly targeted Kumar during his campaign whereas he paid respectful obeisance to the BJP and its top leadership. The BJP, which tacitly supported Paswan to bring Kumar down a few notches and claim pole position in Bihar, did not face this challenge as Paswan did not field candidates in the seats contested by the BJP.

In fact, it was clear during the campaign that the JD(U)’s cadre was completely disenchanted with the BJP’s attempts to undermine it. An audio of JD(U) MP from Bhagalpur Ajay Mandal brought out the fissures in the ruling alliance. In the audio tape, Mandal was heard underlining that the JD(U) should work against the BJP. He was heard saying that the BJP has deliberately tried to mar the JD(U)’s chances by encouraging Paswan in every seat which has been allocated to them. The BJP, on its part, downplayed the Paswan factor, with the Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi telling BusinessLine in an interview that the BJP has “nothing to do with Paswan”.

“Why would we undermine our own ally? The BJP and the JD(U) have worked together for two decades in Bihar and would continue to do so,” Modi said. The assertion became even more relevant on counting night as the two coalitions seemed to be nearing a closer finish than expected. Kumar’s relevance to the BJP could hardly be overstated.

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