Can the bonhomie between Aam Aadmi Party's Arvind Kejriwal and Janata Dal (U) chief Nitish Kumar pave way for a new form of politics in India? The chances are, it can, irrespective of what happens in the Bihar Assembly elections.

It is easy to write off the palpable camaraderie between the two, with Kejriwal extending his wholehearted backing to the Bihar veteran, as a vote bank strategy. The reasoning trotted out here is that the alliance is purely tactical: Biharis in Delhi constitute an influential chunk of the AAP vote bank and Kejriwal is the darling of migrants of all hues. In Kejriwal, Nitish perhaps sees someone who can really pose a challenge to his current bete noire Narendra Modi. But this amounts to a narrow reading of an alliance that presents interesting socio-political possibilities. The coming together of the two forces, one comprehensively urban and the other quite entirely rural, is a unique development. This is in a way akin to the worker-peasant alliance the Left parties have been striving to achieve for years, except that they have not been able to pull it off. If the AAP and JD (U) were to represent the interface of the urban and the rural, they can strike a chord with the growing migrant and floating urban-rural populace.

Both, Kejriwal and Nitish believe more in a welfare-oriented State than one that is growth-driven. The Delhi government’s focus on human development bears this out. Even as Nitish has sought to build infrastructure and invite capital, his stress on education, although inadequate, suggests a convergence. They have also spoken against Hindutva politics. If Nitish can spearhead a national alliance of secular parties with the support of the AAP, Left parties and the Congress, it can emerge as an alternative to the NDA.

Senior Assistant Editor

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