Why Nitish Kumar’s exit undermines Opposition’s 2024 caste pitch, sharpens anti-Congress plank

It puts a question mark on the Opposition’s bid to counter Hindutva with social justice — a strategy that has been its political commonsense since the early 1990s, when an alliance of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati prevented the BJP from coming to power in 1993 in UP. That the crossing comes soon after Karpoori Thakur was awarded the Bharat Ratna dials down the critique of the BJP on the caste pitch.

Nitish’s move to the NDA also reinforces the “Hindutva plus social justice” plank which the BJP has repeatedly underlined as the foundation of its electoral appeal and success.

Bihar Governor Rajendra Arlekar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Deputy CMs Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha during the swearing-in ceremony in Patna, Sunday. (PTI)

Another idea that the Congress pushed since the 1990s – and which had been part of history textbooks since the 1970s – was that the battle for ideological hegemony in India was between a secular vision that the Congress stood for and a “communal” or Hindutva vision that the BJP represented.

If Nitish can at will cross over from the NDA to the Opposition and vice versa and is eagerly brought on board by both sides, what’s the “secular-communal” dichotomy in today’s politics about?

Indeed, last June, when Nitish chaired a meeting of 17 Opposition parties in Patna to take on the BJP unitedly in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that whatever starts from Patna becomes a public movement. Six months later, the terrain has shifted.

Nitish, who chaired that meeting, is with NDA; Banerjee has said the TMC will contest all seats in West Bengal; AAP has said it would go alone in Punjab, and Akhilesh Yadav sprang a surprise Saturday by announcing just 11 seats to a Congress that was thinking of contesting on 20. Mayawati is silent in UP and Opposition unity has crumbled in Bihar.

Significantly, JD(U) leader and Nitish’s trusted aide KC Tyagi chose to train his guns at the Congress rather than the RJD after Kumar resigned.

He said that the Congress had been arrogant, trying to pressure regional parties into giving it more seats than it deserved, and inviting Opposition leaders to a yatra projecting Rahul Gandhi, as if they were Congress workers.

This renewed pitch of anti-Congressism – reminiscent of the 1960s and ‘70s when the socialists and the Jana Sangh would come together against the Congress – puts additional pressure on the Congress even in its negotiations with remaining allies like Akhilesh Yadav.

The BJP had contested just 17 seats out of 40 in Bihar in 2019 and won them all. Had it contested 34 seats this time, it might have even bettered its individual tally.

The real importance of Nitish in the NDA – other than the seats JD(U) may bring to the table in 2024 — is the symbolic heft he offers at a time when the Opposition was trying to corner the BJP on social justice and for its winner-takes-all approach to other parties.

Not only was there support for going with the BJP in significant sections of the JD (U), there was also a sense that the inauguration of the Ram temple could have an impact on JD(U)-RJD voters. “We have sensed that the Ram temple inauguration has resonated on the street here, even with non-BJP voters. Going with the BJP at this time was better for Nitish Kumar,” said a source in the JD(U).

A BJP insider told The Indian Express, “We have to fight the election in the entire country. Why will we make our fight a difficult one in Bihar and get stuck there? With Nitish Kumar, an electoral victory in Bihar is now easier and we can now focus on areas we are weaker to take our tally beyond what we got in 2019.”