THE QUIET DYNAST

He looks and talks like his father. Can he also re-enact his masterful politics? In the throes of a difficult transition with Nitish's exit, JD(U) vests hopes in son Nishant

- Amitabh Srivastava

IT LOOKED FIT FOR A PRINCE'S CORONATION: Nitish Kumar's abrupt decision to step down as chief minister, just a handful of months into his record tenth term, and son Nishant formally joining the Janata Dal (United)—or JD(U)—on March 8. For long seen as a reclusive, apolitical figure—a small dot of silence on Bihar’s otherwise noisy political landscape—he looked cut from the same cloth as his father as he arrived for his baptism rites at the JD(U) headquarters in Patna. Dressed in a plain white kurta-pyjama, showered with rose and marigold petals, he seemed to embody that same blend of simplicity and quiet authority. A success—at least in terms of visual recreation.

It was a debut long anticipated within the JD(U), even eagerly in some quarters, but rarely acknowledged in public. Nitish had spent much of his career castigating dynastic politics. That history guaranteed the spectacle would be all the more striking, hence the touch of circumspection. Also because, at fifty, Nishant is at an unusual age for a dynastic political debutant. The very recourse to him spoke of a certain vacuum.

AN ECHO OF NITISH