By George, Nitish has a game plan

It is ironical that the man who had once rebelled to defeat Lalu and make Nitish chief minister of Bihar is now opposing him. Fernandes and Nitish together walked out of the erstwhile Janata Dal in 1994 after differences with Lalu and formed the Samata Party. Now when his disciple occupies the chief-ministerial post, Fernandes virtually cannot stand him. The fortunate or unfortunate part part of the story is that age has caught up with the once fiery socialist leader. Fernandes today finds himself bereft of the energy needed to prop up another leader.

The parting of ways between Fernandes and Nitish occurred during the last general election, when the former was compelled to contest from Muzaffarpur instead of Nalanda, the safe Kurmi-dominated seat that the latter had gifted him. Nitish had good reason to deny Fernandes that seat. He sensed his own defeat in his traditional Barh parliamentary constituency. Although Fernandes won from Muzaffarpur in 2004, he faced another blow from Nitish in 2006, when he was ousted from the party president’s post. Nitish, by then Bihar’s CM, used his clout to get Sharad Yadav elected as JD(U) president, leaving Fernandes humiliated.

Today, Nitish has travelled too far to need Fernandes. He has not only achieved his cherished goal of trouncing his friend-turned-formidable-foe, Lalu. He has even carved a distinct identity for himself in national politics. For him, Fernandes is more of a liability than an asset today. Therefore when Fernandes came up with a statement recently that the Nitish government should have gone long ago, the Bihar CM was hardly perturbed. It was Fernandes who had to clarify his statement later and claim that he was targeting the UPA.

The political fallout of the Krishnaiah court verdict, however, has concerned Nitish Kumar, and he has tried his best to distance himself from it, saying that his government does not want to target any particular person or caste. After all, given that his coalition government is supported by the upper castes as well as sections of the backward castes, Nitish cannot afford to alienate anybody.

Upper caste dissatisfaction against Nitish, however, preceded even the Krishnaiah verdict. Murmurs of discontent have been there ever since the Nitish Kumar government reserved 20 per cent seats in panchayati raj institutions for the ‘Extremely Backward Classes’ (EBCs). This was big attack on upper caste dominance at the grassroots. With Nitish as CM, the upper castes had hoped to see the return of their ‘raj’ but things have not gone as per that plan, and the court verdict has only fanned this discontent.

It will be premature, however, to say that the upper castes will move away from Nitish. In fact, they are in a bind. It is difficult for them to return to Lalu under whom they had suffered for 15 long years. Their ‘natural’ party, the BJP, cannot make a difference in Bihar on its own, and the Congress is virtually dead in the state. Well aware of this, Nitish meanwhile is focusing on carving a vote bank out of the EBCs and Muslims. He feels that EBC reservations in panchayats have brought them into his fold while his efforts with regard to the Bhagalpur communal riots and the fact that he has ensured that Bihar remained riot-free, would go some way to win over the Muslim community, which accounts for 15 per cent of Bihar’s votes. If Nitish achieves this, he can fulfil his promise to “prove Lalu wrong” by emerging as a leader equal to the Yadav leader.