A TALE OF TWO CMS

If ever there was an award for political gymnastics, Nitish Kumar would undoubtedly be in line for gold, with Chandrababu Naidu competing for a podium finish.

- Rajdeep Sardesai

From being staunch adversaries of Narendra Modi to becoming faithful allies, the transformation of these two chief ministers is almost complete. The manner in which the Janata Dal (United) and the Telugu Desam lined up behind the Wakf Amendment Bill in Parliament is further evidence of how quickly the dice has turned in the last ten months. From being in a position to call the shots in June 2024 after a hung parliament verdict, both Nitish and Naidu have now quietly accepted the BJP’s dominant position.

Nitish’s switch is unarguably the most graphic example of the de-ideologisation of politics in the quest for personal survival. It was, after all, the Bihar chief minister who had raised the flag of revolt against Narendra Modi when the latter was first anointed as the BJP's prime ministerial face in 2013. Withdrawing from the NDA, the aim was to position himself as a secular bulwark against a ‘communal’ force, an apparently ideological and individual conflict that had simmered since the 2002 Gujarat riots. When Modi refused to wear a skullcap during a ‘Sadbhavana Yatra’ in 2013, Nitish was quick to strike back by claiming that ‘to run the country, you have to take everyone along... at times you will have to wear a topi (cap), at times a tilak (vermillion mark on forehead).’ It was the Bihar chief minister’s way of defining his version of ‘soft’ political secularism and contrasting it with the Modi brand of muscular Hindutva.