NITISH THE KINGMAKER

Far from being written off, the canny JD(U) patriarch holds his ground in Bihar and wrests a key role for himself in determining the shape of national and state politics

- Amitabh Srivastava

Politics may have put them on different planes but fate had Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and his former deputy Tejaswi Yadav on the same plane on June 5. Or, more specifically the Tata Vistara flight from Patna to Delhi. The young Tejaswi, seated in Row 2, got up to greet the Janata Dal (United) patriarch, hands folded. Nitish enquired about his back, since the toll of holding 251 election rallies had evidently begun telling on the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) scion, seen as he was campaigning in a wheelchair or with a waist belt. Lalu’s son assured Nitish that all was well.

The political scars, though, may take longer to heal. Despite a spirited campaign focused on employment and livelihood, Tejaswi proved no match for the combined might of Nitish and the BJP, though his party, along with other partners in the Indian National Devel­ opmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA)— the Congress and Left parties—did trim the 2019 tally of the National Demo­ cratic Alliance (NDA) by nine seats.

However, the biggest victory of the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Bihar belonged to Nitish, whose political obituary many a swan song writer had begun drafting. There were whispers about his health, his seeming bursts of temper, intemperate comments and the final straw—his return to the NDA fold this January. Surely, this was the begin­ ning of the end for Nitish, whose status had already diminished considerably with the JD(U) winning just 43 seats in the 2020 assembly election. Rejoining the NDA would leave him on a weaker wicket, it was thought, with the BJP the big brother in the relationship and Nit­ish forever condemned to the sidelines.