Political churning in Bihar: The die is caste

Till a few days back, speculation was rife that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, serving his fourth consecutive term as CM, wants to become a Rajya Sabha member and, thereby, was aiming for the post of Vice-President, who also happens to be the Chairman of the House.

The rumour mill was agog with several theories, particularly after Nitish said, in a lighter vein, that he has been a member of the Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabha, Vidhan Parishad (Legislative Council) but never a Rajya Sabha MP. All eyes were then on the Union Minister for Steel, R C P Singh, a Nitish protege, whose Rajya Sabha term was about to end. It was speculated that Nitish may field himself for the RS seat and move to Centre for doing politics at the national level.

But predicting Nitish is an arduous task, because no one, no matter how close he or she is to the Bihar CM, can predict what is going on in his mind.

On the evening of May 29, Nitish, the de facto JD (U) supremo, stunned everyone when he dropped RCP Singh from the list of Rajya Sabha candidate and picked up a lesser mortal Khiru Mahto, the party chief in Jharkhand, for the RS nomination.

This decision put a lid on two issues: First, Nitish is not moving to the Centre. Secondly, there will be no representation of the JD (U) in the Narendra Modi Government once its single representative, RCP Singh’s term in the Rajya Sabha ends in July this year.

BJP, which has gone to great lengths to keep Nitish in good humour, would not like to displease the Bihar CM and would certainly ask him to suggest the name of any other MP (either from the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha) to fill the Union Minister’s slot. To keep Nitish by their side is BJP’s compulsions also, as in the month of July, there will be Presidential election and the Modi Government is on the edge, with the Opposition as well as the ruling dispensation having almost equal numbers in terms of electoral college votes.

Past imperfect

Secondly, Nitish Kumar’s track record during the Presidential election has been cause of concern for both the camps. During the 2012 Prez poll, Nitish was in the NDA camp, but supported the UPA nominee Pranab Mukherjee, instead of NDA’s P A Sangma. Similarly, during the 2017 Presidential election, Nitish did a volte face. Despite being in the Mahagatbandhan (also called Grand Alliance), he backed the NDA nominee Ramnath Kovind, and not the UPA nominee Meira Kumar, the former Lok Sabha Speaker.

Other than Presidential election, the BJP wants to treat Nitish (the number three party in Bihar in terms of numerical strength after the BJP and the RJD) with kid gloves till at least the 2024 Lok Sabha polls as it knows well that if the JD(U) strongman switches sides and becomes the Opposition face in the Hindi heartland, he could be a potential challenger to Modi.

Nitish, of late, himself created situations where it appeared that he was about to make a U-turn – dump the BJP and join hands with the RJD. In a rare gesture, he recently walked down from the CM’s residence (1, Aney Marg) to Rabri Devi’s residence (10, Circular Road) to attend the Iftaar party thrown by Lalu-Rabri’s son and Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav. This surprised everyone as Nitish has never shared a warm relationship with the RJD leader ever since he dumped the Mahagathbandhan in July 2017 and joined hands with BJP.

Closely following this, within a gap of a few days, Nitish invited Tejashwi and his elder brother Tej Pratap at his Iftaar party. This added grist to the rumour mill that something was cooking between the JD(U) and the RJD and Nitish was preparing the ground for another somersault.

A third related incident took place, again in May. Tejashwi sought time from the CM to make a formal demand for caste census in Bihar after the Centre had publicly said that it was not in favour of any caste census. (Earlier, Nitish had led an all-party delegation to PM Modi and demanded caste census but it bore no fruit).

“Coincidentally, Nitish and Tejashwi are on the same page on the issue of caste census and have been vocal about it by asserting that only a caste census will throw fresh data about the affluent and marginalised class, which, in turn, will help prepare plans for the welfare of those who have been left behind in economic development and social change,” opined noted social scientist Ajay Kumar.

Nitish gave Tejashwi an appointment within a day and it was eventually decided that an all-party meeting will be convened soon to discuss the caste census issue threadbare.

This came amidst the backdrop of the Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai’s statement in Parliament that Centre was not in favour of a caste census. But once Nitish-Tejashwi bonhomie was more than visible, BJP changed its track. The Bihar BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal was the first to take corrective measures when he asserted that “BJP will also attend the all-party meeting on caste census, as it was never against it”.

“Nitish’ purpose was served when BJP made a climbdown on the issue of caste census. A shrewd politician that Nitish is, he just used the RJD to send a message to the BJP that he has other ready-made options if the latter fails to fall in line with his policies,” observed former Rajya Sabha MP Shivanand Tiwary, who has worked closely with Nitish Kumar as well as Lalu Prasad.

“The chronology of recent events provides the clearest evidence how a cornered Nitish killed several birds with one stone,” summed up the social scientist.