aray leave (Slam him)!” Such was Nitish Kumar dismiss He questioned the suggestion of his former colleague RCP Singh that the erstwhile Janata Dal (United) and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal would merge.
This is very specific to the Chief Minister of Bihar. He is always emphatic and dismissive of predictions concerning his next move—perhaps because he himself cannot predict it until he does it. When he broke ties with Lalu Yadav in 1994, who knew he would join him again after two decades? When election strategist Prashant Kishor brought them together in 2015, who knew that Kumar would part ways with Lalu after two years—that too to join hands with Narendra Modi, whose prime ministerial candidacy was held by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). With that was his breaking point. ), his colleague for 17 years? And even in 2017, who could have predicted that he would again join hands with Lalu after five years?
So, yes, chuck it! Nitish Kumar himself cannot predict what he will do in the coming months. But Lalu and Tejashwi Yadav think what they want to do before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Rise of Tejashwi Yadav
The indication of Lalu and Tejashwi’s plan came in a resolution passed in the National Executive meeting of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Delhi last Monday. It has been said that Lalu Yadav or Tejashwi Yadav will take the final decision on changing the name of RJD, its election symbol and issues related to it.
The proposal has surprised even RJD leaders. What was the need for this resolution? And context and purpose! That is why it has again intensified the talks on the JD(U)-RJD merger. This is not a new thing. Mulayam Singh Yadav was earlier trying to bring together the disintegrations of the Janata Dal. In 2015, when Lalu Yadav was reluctant to accept Kumar as the CM candidate, it was Mulayam who relied on the former for his ambitious integration project. The leaders of the Samajwadi Party were no more and hence the driving force behind this grand project was gone.
But Lalu and Tejashwi are keen to pursue it, albeit on a less grand scale, as is evident from the RJD’s proposal. They have reasons. Without this larger objective, Tejashwi had no reason to re-align with Nitish Kumar, who easily wielded one. CBI FIR against him, his deputy at the time, for ousting the RJD and re-aligning with the BJP in 2017. Why would you want to use Tejashwi Kumar again? After all, the young RJD leader has come a long way in the last five years. He almost pulled it off in the process of crossing over his father’s Muslim-Yadav constituencies to inspire the youth in the last assembly election. He is arguably the most popular leader in Bihar today, with Nitish Kumar as its chief and the BJP not having a pan-Bihar face.
Kumar’s equation with the BJP was getting worse day by day, when they were together, Tejashwi could wait for them to break up. He has become a smarter politician than he thought. Then why would he become deputy CM again and lose his main anti-incumbency wave against the JD(U)-BJP government- which almost worked in the 2020 elections? And why would the RJD make its two ‘sacrifices’? ministers—Karthik Kumar and Sudhakar Singh—When is Kumar on his knees?
Having emerged as a popular, powerful leader in his own right, why would Tejashwi agree to play a second role for Kumar and compromise his and his party’s long-term interests? These questions take us to the RJD’s proposal and what Kumar’s former confidante RCP Singh had to say about the JD(U)-RJD merger.
Merger in Lalu’s party is the only option to avoid ‘hostile takeover’
Lalu-Tejashwi know that Nitish Kumar had to return to them under compulsion. The BJP was there to eliminate him politically. Till when Modi’s party can play second fiddle with Nitish Kumar in Bihar? How long could she bear the wounds of Kumar, who humiliated and humiliated the then Gujarat chief minister in 2010 – first by canceling a dinner for BJP leaders in Patna and then by rejecting the Rs 5 crore flood relief aid given by Gujarat Gave? So, in the 2020 assembly election, it used Modi’s self-styled ‘Hanuman’, Chirag Paswan, to bring down the JD(U)’s tally to 43 in the 243-member assembly. The BJP was now bigger in the alliance and BJP leaders made Kumar realize this every day as they publicly taunted and criticized his government.
The last assembly election also showed that Kumar was a shadow of his former self in Bihar. The logical next step for ‘Big Brother’—as well as its proven track record—was to relieve Kumar of a political obligation that brought the BJP down. If 40 of Shiv Sena’s 56 MLAs can break away from their party, JD(U) is left with a total of 45 MLAs, who are already worried about their future with Kumar losing his shine. The question for BJP was time – before or after the next Lok Sabha elections? Whenever that happened, Kumar was left with virtually nothing—constant colleagues, a badly eroded support base and a bleak future. Even if he thinks of fighting the battle for the last time, he will stand no chance against a range of opponents, from BJP to RJD, Chirag Paswan and those who don’t. It must have been a challenge for Nitish Kumar to survive every day under these circumstances. He was extremely vulnerable and he knew it better than anyone else.
Lalu and Tejashwi Yadav might have made him feel more secure. But they need more than a pound of meat in the deal. If Nitish Kumar agrees to merge his party with the RJD, the unified organization led by Tejashwi becomes a strong force in Bihar. In return, Yadav puts his weight behind Kumar’s national ambitions. Even if Modi’s BJP retains power in 2024, Kumar becomes the national face of the RJD – or whatever the name of the new outfit – while Tejashwi gets a shot at the CM’s chair for a year or so. As the heir to the political legacy of Lalu and Kumar, Tejashwi becomes a formidable force in Bihar politics for a long time to come. Kumar will not mind this. He should have known that he could not have completed his current term, anyway, with or without the BJP. Now he can hope to make a good arrangement with Lalu and Tejashwi to remain relevant on the national political center stage.
If Kumar has any other ideas to consider, he should be prepared to fight bids for ‘hostile takeover’ from multiple parties. He is a smart enough player for this. One should not be surprised if Kumar knew about the RJD’s political proposal before it was moved.
DK Singh is the political editor of ThePrint. He tweeted at @dksingh73. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Neera Mazumdar)