The importance of being Sushil Kumar Modi

When the hardliners within the Bharatiya Janata Party are baying for his blood, there are some independent political observers who see in Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi (SuMo) a  material to be elevated to the post of Union finance minister.  They cite acute shortage of experts on the financial matter in the saffron party as well as economic slowdown as the reasons for their argument.

But there is no dearth of leaders within his own party who do not want to  see him even as the senior-most minister of his party in the Nitish Kumar cabinet.

The anti-SuMo camp is led by the Union ministers Giriraj Singh and Nityanand Rai. They do not want to give any credit to Bihar’s finance minister for the role he played in bringing down the Grand Alliance and the homecoming of Nitish. In fact, many among this camp want Nitish to be eased or even pushed out of the NDA and are openly calling for the CM post to be left for the BJP.

Giriraj and Nityanand, a Bhumihar and Yadav, reportedly met recently to draw future course of action. Party insiders are of the view that the BJP leadership may put up either of the two as the chief ministerial candidate in the next year’s Assembly election.

If this faction really enjoys the patronage of central leadership––as it is claimed––then Bihar may witness a new sort of political realignment between Janata Dal United and RJD––or a faction of the latter.

However, analysts are of the view that the BJP leadership may commit blunder if they ignore the talent of SuMo and dump Nitish. There is no denying the fact that the family members of Lalu Yadav are in trouble largely because of SuMo’s efforts. Be it the unearthing of fodder scam of 1996 or IRCTC scam of 2017, the role of SuMo can not be ignored.

“There is no leader of the stature of Sushil Modi in Bihar BJP. Honestly speaking in this hour of grave economic crisis he would have filled the vacuum created by the absence of Arun Jaitley,” said Ajay Kumar, editor of  bihartimes.com.

“If an inexperienced hand like Nirmala Sitharaman, who joined the BJP in 2006 can now be the finance minister of India why can’t Sushil Modi be trusted with this responsibility? After all, he became the finance minister of Bihar way back in 2005. He has been at this post for 10 of the last 14 years. Besides, he is the chairman of the GST Council,” said Ajay Kumar.

Ajay is not alone. There are others who, on condition of anonymity said that overlooking SuMo may prove suicidal for the Bihar BJP. After all there are many old timers within the party who strongly root for him.

However, they are of the opinion that SuMo would be a great loser if the BJP central leadership really wants to cut him to size. “The Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo have thrust new leaders in various states, for example in Jharkhand, Haryana, Maharashtra etc. In Jharkhand Raghubar Das, a non-tribal was made CM. If this happens in Bihar SuMo would be left high and dry,” said a commentator. SuMo’s problem is that he may not get any place in the new realignment between Janata Dal United and RJD. Even the breakaway faction of RJD––that is minus Tejashwi Prasad Yadav––may not accommodate SuMo in the new arrangement.

However, the condition in Bihar is very fluid and anything may happen. One Bihar-watcher contended that the NDA may go together in the next Assembly election and the top leadership of the saffron party is only using Giriraj and Union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai only to keep pressure on Nitish and contain him before he makes too much demand for seats in the Assembly poll.