MODI SUNRISE, NITISH ECLIPSE

The BJP wants to retain all the goodwill Brand Nitish will bring it for the Bihar poll—but not much more

- By Amitabh Srivastava

PAHALGAM TO PATNA. As political horizons, they are over a thousand miles apart. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi had collapsed the distance on April 24, when he chose Madhubani as the unlikely stage from where to promise retribu-tion against Pakistan. When he returned to Bihar at the end of May, the public sphere still sizzled with the acrid residues of Operation Sindoor. The right atmospherics, then, for him to talk of mission accomplished—yoking Bihar to the spinning wheels of a larger narrative. Not that it was all abstract. Modi's 32-minute elocution at Bikramganj, Rohtas district, wove the local and national together like warp and woof, holding forth on growth, welfare, the end of Maoism et al, lobbing in barbs at the Opposition to spice things up. Something was conspicuous by its absence too: a clear endorsement of Nitish Kumar as a chief ministerial face.

NO MORE THE GROOM?