Year ender 2017: Rejig in Bihar as Nitish severs ties with Lalu, reunites with BJP

Mumbai: The year 2017 had witnessed some sort of drama in the politics of Bihar. Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United ((JD(U)) chief Nitish Kumar who had formed an alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) after the elections in the state in 2015 had snapped ties with RJD in July to extended support to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led - National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Nitish Kumar took the drastic step of severing ties with the 'mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) four years after he had snapped his 17-year-old association with the BJP in protest against the latter making Narendra Modi its prime ministerial candidate.

The latest bonhomie between Nitish and BJP was seen when he was present in Gujarat recently for the swearing in of the new state government led by BJP. 

A chief minister attending the swearing-in function of another CM has never raised any eyebrows but someone of Nitish’s stature taking a 2:30 am flight from Patna (where no flight operates late night) to reach Gujarat has left many questions unanswered.

Nitish before aligning with BJP would not leave a single opportunity to demean his new alliance partner. 

It was him who trashed the Gujarat model of governance, abhorred the BJP and other saffron fringe groups, and was seen as a potential challenger to Narendra Modi in 2019 Lok Sabha election.

From 2010 to before he joined hands with BJP again in 2017, media went into describing Nitish’s rivalry with Modi. 

This started in 2010 when Nitish returned the Rs 5 crore cheque that Modi had offered for Kosi flood relief, simply because of an advertisement row in which Modi was seen holding Nitish’s hand. 

The Bihar chief minister was so annoyed with the advertisement that he cancelled the dinner he had planned at his official residence for top BJP leaders in June 2010.

Mamata Banerjee, who then visited Patna to protest against demonetisation, dubbed Nitish a ‘traitor’ for breaking ranks with other Opposition parties on the issue.

The sharp hostility between Nitish and Lalu began at the "Prakash Parv" in January, when at a function held to celebrate 350th birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh, Modi and Kumar shared dais and showered praise on each other.

During the Assembly polls in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh in February, the JD(U) gave up its earlier enthusiasm for opposition unity and maintained a studied distance notwithstanding the Congress forming an alliance with the Samajwadi Party and the RJD throwing its weight behind the coalition.

Earlier, in 2016, Kumar had ruffled the feathers of his coalition partners by coming out in support of Modi's demonetisation decision, which the Congress and the RJD criticise till date.

That all was not well with the 'mahagathbandhan' became more than obvious when Kumar decided to support the candidature of Ram Nath Kovind in the presidential election. The chief minister defended his decision citing Kovind's exemplary conduct as the governor of Bihar and contended that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), by belatedly fielding former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, was fighting a lost battle.

However, the turning point came with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filing a case in connection with the land for hotels scam against Lalu Prasad and his family members, including his younger son and the then deputy chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav.

Kumar's suggestion that Yadav give a public explanation was rejected by the RJD and he resigned from the chief minister's post citing irreconcilable differences with his alliance partner. The BJP came up with the offer of support and a new government was installed with Kumar being sworn in as the chief minister less than 24 hours after having stepped down.

The stormy developments did not leave the JD(U) unscathed, though, with the party's former president Sharad Yadav and Rajya Sabha MP Ali Anwar, an old Kumar loyalist, raising a banner of revolt.

Defying party diktats, the duo took part in functions held by the RJD and openly accused Kumar of having betrayed the mandate of 2015 Assembly polls.

Kumar, however, scored a few points by expelling all Sharad loyalists from the party, successfully defending a case against the rebel faction's claim over the party symbol before the Election Commission (EC) and finally getting both Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar disqualified from the Rajya Sabha.

The collapse of the Grand Alliance also caused turmoil in the state unit of the Congress, which stands bitterly divided into two factions, one said to be close to Kumar and the other more comfortable with the RJD.

Infighting led to the removal of Ashok Choudhary as the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee chief. The rival faction has been accusing Choudhary of plotting a split at the instance of Kumar in whose cabinet he was a powerful minister and with whom he is said to maintain good relations.

Another key decision taken by the Nitish Kumar government was to introduce reservations in outsourced services, a move that has been described by critics as an attempt to bring quota system in the private sector through backdoor.

A new mining policy brought in July to put a check on illegal sand mining became a major bone of contention. The same has been stayed by the Patna High Court, which has also directed the state government to ensure that mining was allowed under the old provisions.

An appeal against the high court order has been turned down by the Supreme Court. Truck operators in the state went on a strike in November in protest against stringent restrictions imposed on transportation of sand while the RJD, often accused of being in cahoots with the state's sand mining mafia, has seized the opportunity to blame the government for a slump in construction activities which has rendered many workers jobless.

Another Patna High Court order stating that contractual teachers in the state were entitled to get salary at par with their regular counterparts has also left the cash-starved government in a bind.

Had Nitish wished, he could have easily scripted a new chapter in the political history of India. But much to the disappointment of his supporters, he has preferred to align with the Modi-Shah combine for reasons only best known to him.

With inputs from PTI.