THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH

On November 29, former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi addressed a gathering at Patna’s A.N. Sinha Institute, where he backed a full term for the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government in the state. “Iss sarkar ko koi gira nahin sakta (Nobody can pull down this government). There will be no mid-term poll in Bihar,” he declared during his speech at a memorial meet for the late Suraj Nandan Kushwaha of the BJP.

- Amitabh Srivastava

Sushil Modi may wish the Bihar government well, but the BJP central leadership has decided that he will play no part in it. Incidentally, he was deputy chief minister in 2005 when Nitish Kumar completed his first full term as chief minister, and retained the post every time a JD(U)-BJP government was in power. But now Modi is being shifted to Delhi to allow the saffron story to start a new chapter in Bihar.

On November 27, the party named Modi as its candidate for the Rajya Sabha seat that fell vacant on the death of Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan. Given the NDA majority in the Bihar house, Modi should win the seat if there is a contest for the December 14 bypoll.

While some see this as a move forerunning his possible elevation to the Union cabinet, the flip-side reality of Modi’s rehabilitation in Delhi is that the party wants a new cast of characters in its state unit. By virtue of its sizeable numerical advantage over ally Janata Dal (United) or JD(U) in the assembly—the BJP has 74 MLAs and JD(U) 43—the BJP is now the senior partner in the alliance and wants the stretch room to pursue an expansionist agenda in the state. This would have been harder, if not impossible, without a change of guard—for reinstalled chief minister Nitish Kumar and Sushil Modi got along to a fault.