With all eyes on Bihar, chance for Nitish Kumar to break away from the BJP

Post-Delhi election, as things stand, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has emerged as a leader who no longer needs an ally in the state. With friend-turned-foe and a one-time colleague and ‘ Bade Bhai’ Lalu Prasad Yadav politically a spent force and the BJP totally alienating the Dalits on the issue of reservation, observers believe the time has come for Nitish Kumar to charter an independent course.

Going by the emotional nature of Muslim voters, Nitish Kumar is certain to get the Muslim votes without even asking for support, provided he declares ‘talaq’ to the ever dominating BJP, his current alliance partner. True, the Bihar CM does not have a formidable caste base of his own. But several observers in Bihar believe that actually works out to his advantage.

It is also true that Muslims alone cannot see Nitish Kumar through in the elections. But then, Nitish has carved out a solid, non-Yadav OBC and EBC constituency for himself. A sizeable section of upper castes too are unlikely to be hostile to a non-Yadav political combination.

The upper castes in Bihar realize that they alone cannot steer the BJP to power and as such barring the diehard votaries of Hindutva among them, for others among the upper castes, making political compromises to be on the right side of power would not be as difficult as it might have been earlier.

Adding to Nitish's advantage, during his 15-years rule, he has not personally shown partisanship in governance and, has, by and large, allowed the law to be implemented as per the rule books. One of the recent instances is when the Bihar chief minister ensured that the Communist Party of India’s rising star Kanhaiyya Kumar’ s political programs are not obstructed by supporters of the ruling alliance.

While this clearly angered BJP supporters and leaders alike, the chief minister conducted himself with political correctness and grace.

Observers believe that in this scenario, going it alone will not be much of a risk for Nitish. Some of them believe that to make things easier, Nitish Kumar may even align with the Congress and the Left, possibly more as fellow travelers than alliance partners.

Contrary to the perception and media projection of Nitish Kumar as someone disinclined to take political risks, he, more than once in his political career, has taken much bigger plunges, first in the 1990s when he parted company with Lalu Yadav when the latter was at the peak of his popularity, and again when he not only withdrew the dinner invite to Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat CM, but also broke the two-decades-long association with the BJP.

At this stage of his career, Nitish has little to lose either. Having made public his reservations on several central policies like the NRC, he can afford to go it alone and in the process also emerge as a formidable challenger to Narendra Modi in the 2024 Parliamentary elections.

His acceptability in the non-BJP political space is still high. Although the Union Home Minister Amit Shah has tried to set speculation to rest by declaring that Nitish Kumar would be the face of the NDA in the next election, he refrained from stating categorically that he would be the chief ministerial face.

After the Delhi election, Shah may be willing to revisit his stand. But the results in Delhi also give an opportunity to the Bihar chief minister to recalibrate his own position at a time when in the state he appears to have no challenger who can match him in stature, experience, and popularity.