CONGRESS 'YUKT' BHARAT

The last day of 2022 seemed the perfect occasion for Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to make another pivot, one that can potentially inflect the course of Indian politics.

- Amitabh Srivastava

When the media in Patna sought his response to former Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath’s advocacy of Rahul Gandhi as the Opposition’s prime ministerial face in 2024, he issued a sidelong endorsement: “Thike hai, usme kya burai hai?” (It’s fine, where’s the objection?). “After all,” he added, “they have to pick the candidate.” Nitish may not have the casting vote on the issue, but his word does have carry— and shifts the weight of perceptions at a time when Rahul’s Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY has been receiving only sporadically enthusiastic responses from the Opposition. For all the Congress’s joy at having rediscovered its mojo, with endless visuals of waving crowds lining the roads and social media rapture, the hard-core political spectrum has been at best ambivalent till now.

A tone of formality rather than outright cordiality had marked the responses of both big leaders of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati, as Rahul’s yatra wended its way into the state in the new year. In Akhile sh’s case, even that came after a bit of heated verbal jousting between the two leaders. Beyond the north, at least two Opposition CMs—West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee and Telangana’s K. Chandrashekar Rao—appear unwilling to accept Congress primacy. Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal, of course, is a natural rival. It is in this space that Nitish’s intervention can play a role, since he has an access to all sides here.