THE NIMO KNOCKOUT

A COORDINATED, PROMISE-LADEN CAMPAIGN HELPS THE NDA ACHIEVE A SPECTACUAR VICTORY. CAN IT BRING THE SAME UNITY OF PURPOSE TO THE TASK OF TRANSFORMING BIHAR?

- By AMITABH SRIVASTAVA

ON November 20, as Nitish Kumar, the 74-year-old patriarch of the Janata Dal (United), walked up to take oath as the chief minister of Bihar for a record tenth time, he stepped into a tenure laden both with promise and the weight of expectation.

He had decimated not just a younger, energetic opponent in Tejashwi Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), but also defeated any doubts about his mental and political astuteness, along with all insinuations of anti-incumbency. His party's partnership with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a set of other fellow travellers with smaller but strategically disparate bases had led the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to a landslide 202 out of 243 seats. Now comes the task of living up to the mandate.

The vehicle to accomplish it looks, at first glance, not too different from the old one. There was a time, not too long ago, when a touch of indeterminacy attached to Nitish's continuation as CM. But not only is he back at the helm, the two BJP deputy CMs—Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha—have been retained too. The new cabinet comprises nine ministers from the JD(U), 14 from the BJP, two from Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party and one each from Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular (HAMS) and Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM). Besides the usual quantum of new faces (nine) and discards (12), it was a fairly faithful reflection of the balance, coordination and cohesion seen during the campaign where, despite potential for discord, all cogs in the wheel moved as one. Will it carry forward into governance as well?